122 THE FINCHES 



regurgitated at the same time with seeds regurgitated seeds as dis- 

 tinct from insects regurgitated seeds alone. We can also under- 

 stand how Fatio and Bailly, seeing the bird fly in with nothing in its 

 bill and then regurgitate something, may have assumed this to be 

 grain when it really was insects. This, indeed, is rather an unhand- 

 some supposition, as against so good and painstaking an observer as 

 the latter seems to have been ; but, then, it may be wide of the mark, 

 or, again, "dormitat nonnunquam bonus ffomerus." 



Whatever the food, or whatever the method of sustenance 

 adopted, young chaffinches are extremely well looked after, their 

 state, from this point of view, being a more gracious one than that 

 of young goldfinches, who are not fed, apparently, more than once an 

 hour. 1 Once in ten minutes would seem to be the usual chaffinch 

 rule, and sometimes the interval may be diminished to five or even 

 three. Thus, within the space of an hour and a quarter, twenty-one 

 visits were observed, ten by the male and eleven by the female, in 

 every one of which food was brought (which need not always be the 

 case), and so attentive and careful were the parents that, if not 

 entirely satisfied with the position of the morsel delivered in the 

 mouth of the quite young fledgling, they would replace it properly, or 

 even remove it and give it to another of the brood. 2 



An observation that has been made, both in regard to the 

 chaffinch 3 and goldfinch, 4 viz. that when any of the young leave the 

 nest the male alone returns to it, whilst the female devotes herself 

 solely to those that have flown, is interesting as showing, or at least 

 suggesting, how the habit of both parents feeding the young, instead 

 of only one, may have been fostered through natural selection ; for if 

 this last must be disadvantageous, even while the family are together, 

 it would be doubly so when it became separated. The exit takes 



1 See a very interesting and sympathetic paper by Miss M. E. Bruce in vol. xv. of The Auk, 

 pp. 239-43. The observations, it is true, were made in the United States, and the Latin name 

 of the goldfinch is not given. Still, it seems probable that what applies to the North Ameri- 

 can species of goldfinch would apply also to our own. 



2 Country Life, July 13, 1907. 



3 Parren, op. cit. * Bruce, op, cit. 



