148 THE FINCHES 



breadth of some fifteen or twenty yards. 1 The number contained in 

 such a body would be all the greater, because bramblings, under these 

 circumstances, fly close together, presenting the appearance, accord- 

 ing to one observer, of a "winged (say a many-winged) serpent." 

 When feeding thus, in numbers, together, the rearward members of 

 the column keep constantly flying over the heads of those in front of 

 them, so as to become the van. In this manner, says Bailly, 3 they 

 will pass from end to end of a field and back again, but this is a trait 

 not peculiar either to them or to finches. 



There does not appear to be any precise evidence, in the case 

 of the brambling, of the male and female birds flocking separately. 

 That they do not habitually do so is evident; but, as with the 

 chaffinch, which species they resemble more than any other finch, 

 it may be an occasional feature. In the latter bird this is said to 

 be a northern habit ; but although, in his Birds of Oxfordshire, Aplin 

 remarks of it that " the sexes were formerly believed to separate in 

 winter," Gilbert White's evidence should be held decisive on this 

 point, even had it never been confirmed. He says, inter alia, " I see, 

 every winter, vast flights of hen chaffinches, but none of cocks." 4 To 

 suppose that such a man could be mistaken on such a point, not once 

 merely, but every winter, would be extremely ridiculous, and, more- 

 over which, however, I do not say as strengthening the evidence I 

 have seen the same thing myself, also every winter, in Berkshire, 

 though here the numbers, if sometimes considerable, were never vast. 

 But that they were every one hens I very well remember, and I have 

 remarked the same tendency sometimes, though to a much less 

 extent, in Suffolk, as recently, without this qualification, in Brittany. 

 It is also exhibited, in a partial and fluctuating degree, by the 

 greenfinch, which may perhaps be considered the most gregarious 

 of the finches that breed with us, inasmuch as some four or 



1 R. Gray mentions one such instance in his Birds of the West of Scotland, but Stevenson 

 (Birds of Norfolk) speaks of a flock which took thirty-five minutes in issuing from its roosting- 

 place, flying continuously all the while ; and this must have been very much larger. 



2 R. Gray, op. cit. 3 Ornithologie de la Saroie. 

 * The Natural History of Selborne. 



