130 THE FINCHES 



species have, in the adult state, largely, or even wholly (that, at least, 

 is the official view), given up the latter, and also feed their young, for 

 the most part, if not in some cases entirely, on seeds that have been 

 softened in the crop as the linnet, twite, crossbill, etc. others, such 

 as the chaffinch, brambling, sparrow and tree-sparrow, are both fonder 

 of insects themselves, and prefer them as food for their offspring. 

 There is, however, no necessary connection between personal and 

 parental habits in this respect, since the hawfinch, the staple of whose 

 diet is (or is supposed to be) vegetable, 1 feeds the young on insects, 2 

 and the linnet, which, officially, gives them nothing but seeds, is 

 itself, to some extent, an insect-eater. 3 



As the two diets of insects and seeds differ entirely, it may 

 perhaps be conjectured that our finches first confined themselves to 

 one of them, though which that one was may not be so easy to 

 determine. Perhaps, if we think of the hardness or snow-covered 

 state of the ground during much of the winter in north temperate 

 Europe, and of the many asylums for small hybernating creatures, 

 it may seem a more likely conjecture since many of our small resident 

 birds are wholly or almost wholly carnivorous that insects, construed, 

 in a large sense, to include spiders, slugs, and the like, were the 

 primitive finch food. The fact that they are, in general, offered to 

 the young without previous swallowing or dressing, which is certainly 

 the more simple method, may add to the probability of its having been 

 the first practised. We must assume, moreover, that whatever was 

 the food of the grown bird would, in the first instance, have been 

 that of the nestling also for how could an idea of varying it to some- 

 thing not previously tried have occurred, " on a suddenty," to either 

 or both parents ? But if a change in the method of feeding the young 

 has taken place, it seems, prima facie, more probable that this has 

 been from the simple to the complex rather than the other way, and 



1 This, according to Naumann's editor, is the most that can be said, even if as much can be. 

 See post, p. 155, footnote. 



1 Seebohm, Hist. British Birds ; Naumann, Naturgeschichte der Vogel Mitteleuropas, iii. 

 3 See ante, " Classified Notes," p. 76. 



