THE FINCHES 97 



and adornment than of any other two attributes, altogether distinct 

 from one another, as, for instance, those of flight, running, climbing, 

 swimming, etc., in more than one of which no bird excels ; or, rather, 

 the combination of the first two is not so much an exception as a law 

 that is often in abeyance. The Finches, as it appears to me, illustrate 

 this law upon a moderate plane, and if, by establishing this, I can 

 make them in any degree instrumental to the dissipation of a fallacy 

 which has run through both hemispheres, I shall have done the world 

 and them some service how much it is not for me to say. 



This, I think, should be easy, for if the greenfinch sings only 

 sufficiently well, let us say, to make him just a singer, is he not 

 equally, by his plumage, just a pretty bird ? and if the goldfinch be a 

 very pretty one for looking to the " Class Aves," as a whole, one dare 

 not claim more for him is not his song superior, almost, if not quite, 

 in the same degree ? Then, descending, we have the twite, who, in 

 this connection, may be instructively opposed to the linnet. The song 

 of the male is undeniably inferior, and so, too, is his special adorn- 

 ment, the rosy flush above the tail. Yet both he possesses, and both, 

 to the same end, he uses. The first he ekes out, as it were, with an 

 attractive upward flight and descent, 1 whilst to show the last to 

 advantage, he will, time after time, both open and depress the wings, 2 

 by which it is not only seen to the full, but with an added charm for 

 the spread wing is ever a beauty. In the sparrow, again Domesiicus, 

 I mean, he of notoriety ; his uncorrupted cousin, Mvntanus, may top 

 him " by the altitude of a chopine " we have a basic example of the 

 same thing. True, he cannot properly be said to possess either vocal 

 or bodily attractions, but since he thinks he has both, and acts on that 

 conviction, he stands essentially on the same footing indeed offers 

 a good illustration of the principle under examination. With drooped 

 wings, and actions in which an attempt to look sentimental seems to 

 struggle with the habitual self-satisfaction and air of vulgar import- 



1 Macpherson and Harvie-Brown, Fauna of N.- W. Scotland. 



2 T. A. Coward and C. Oldham, Birds of Cheshire. 



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