THE FINCHES 93 



has been steadily shocked at me with others perhaps he would have 

 trilled. 



I have said that the above diversion of the male greenfinch 

 (the penultimate one, I mean, in the air) was not egotistical. I 

 now make good my words by stating that it is nuptial a combined 

 display of that kind both to eye and ear, in which not only must 

 the beauties of the vellow-green breast, as the bird mounts and 



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descends, be made clear to the up-glancing hen, but the lighter 

 and still brighter yellow almost of a citron hue bordering the 

 wings upon their upper surface, must also, when thus flashed rapidly 

 downwards, be strikingly recommended to her kindly consideration. 

 But there is not only the charm of colour here, as well as of music, 

 but also that of the flight itself; and in the beauty, or strangeness, 

 of this, one would have a sufficient reason for such a performance, 

 were the greenfinch no brighter than the lark. Indeed in the sky- 

 lark's soaring too high surely even for a bird to see well we have, 

 very probably, the ultimate expansion of the nuptial allurement, 

 become now a joy in itself. 



If the single flight-matrimonial of the greenfinch be pretty to 

 witness, the double one of the chaffinch our little Coelebs is more 

 much more than this. Here there is nothing of bizarrerie, of some- 

 thing which, though enjoyable, is almost uncouth for the wing and 

 body action of Chloris are open to this charge but all is beauty, 

 nothing but beauty and grace. Out of some high tree in which 

 they have sat for some time, invisibly, calling to one another, the 

 pair sweep, suddenly, in downward flight, pressed, at times, almost 

 together, so close is the race, and still conversing as they sink. 

 The effect in this is not gained by the striving for it ; the motion, 

 though swift as an arrow, is yet effortless, for the wings are but 

 spread, and the bright little birds swim, as it were, upon them, down 

 the thin waters of the air, with those almost sensuous curves, flexions, 

 slidings, glidings, which so fill, yet never to satiety, the human eye. 

 Nearing the ground, they undulate, for a little, above it, then with 



