100 THE FINCHES 



indefinitely, the sunset area the black tail, brought round with 

 strenuous motions, presents itself, now upon the one flank, now the 

 other, 1 like the homelier relief action in a drama whose almost too 

 powerful interest might, if untempered, keep the spirits too much at 

 a tension. Of course the velvet of the smooth round head plays here 

 its part, also, and the same is the case with the fiery forehead of the 

 goldfinch and the chaffinch's little blue crown. 



For the latter bird, his little simple roundelay, trolled out so 

 constantly through the spring and livelong summer day, that the 

 country, at that time, would hardly seem the country without it, is 

 fairly on a par, perhaps, with his more moderate degree of adornment, 

 and, as we have seen, he is equally anxious to do justice to both. It is 

 the same with the other members of the family the crossbill, gros- 

 beak, siskin, twite, linnet, brambling, and the rest. All these birds 

 have, in varying degrees, adornments which they make good use of, all 

 have a song, and in most, if not all of them, there is some rough 

 correspondence between the extent to which both are developed 

 in the same species. 



This is the case with the two first-named, who both sing melodi- 

 ously, 2 with the brambling, who, under proper conditions, does also, 3 

 with the siskin, who is both less adorned and less musical, with the 

 twite, to whom this applies on a still lower plane, and pre-eminently 

 upwards again with the linnet. 4 For the song of the latter, he 

 confessedly excels in it all other of our finches, but I also acclaim him 

 the most beautiful, for there is something in that Lucrece breast of his, 

 which, for me, strikes a higher note than anything in the more extended 

 and worked-up adornments of either the goldfinch or bullfinch. It is 

 hard indeed there is something like inconstancy, with remorse, about 

 it to have to give up the breast of the latter, having but just praised it 

 so warmly ; but I cannot help preferring the colour of the linnet's, and, 



1 See Jenner Weir, as referred to by Darwin in the Descent of Man. 



2 For the grosbeak see Naumaun, Naturgeschichte der Vogel Mittelcuropas, iii. 



3 Collett, as quoted in Sharpe and Dresser's Birds of Europe. 



4 Naumann, op. cit. 



