

102 THE FINCHES 



bronze-hued leaves that looked like those of a small water-lily there 

 I was watching. The greenfinch had drunk there, and so had the 

 pheasant, and the thrush still stood, silently, within a hop's length, 

 though he had come for a water-snail. Then he drew a little back, for 

 a moment, half startled at a small rushing sound, as, out of the elm- 

 tops and right into the still-lying sunshine, a bird, like a meteor, shot 

 impetuously down, and then up, and then down again, with a pen- 

 dulum swing, going from one side to another, in a series of bold, 

 sweeping dashes, each one like a ray of blood. The last reached the 

 water, and there, in its very centre, poised on a lily-leaf, the bird stood, 

 his magnificent breast flashing and kindling in the sun, and drank 

 daintily. One greenfinch whom he seemed to disdain was drinking 

 there too, not far from him, his body partly submerged in the water 

 half frightened at his own boldness but the daintier weight of the 

 linnet scarce wetted him whilst he sipped. That was a picture and 

 the thrush now was banging his water-snail. 



Everything that the linnet does he does daintily. Even feeding, 

 which is a gross thing in itself, is not so with him. You may see him 

 in the spring-time, sometimes, when daisies are about, stretching up 

 and bending over one of them, to crop its golden crown, and his 

 partner, the hen, will fly up beside him, to share the poetical meal. 

 There is no more pretty conjugal scene, but that breast of the male 

 is almost too much, sometimes, for it seems to be bleeding. It is not 

 like the redbreast's, who never has moved me so, but right blood, 

 to my fancy, and splotched upon the feathers as if it were welling 

 out of them. 



Since, however, it has not been acquired in that way, how has 

 it been ? and how has that of the male bullfinch, greenfinch, chaf- 

 finch, with their plumage generally, the crossbill's too, and the gold 

 and red cap of the goldfinch the question comprises all of them 

 how have they all been acquired ? Protective amalgamation with 

 the general hues of the landscape is here excluded, even for the 

 extreme modern exponents of that view, for not only, were it valid, 



