THE GREENFINCH. ' 



greyish brown, edged with yellow ; secondaries with paler outer webs ; tail feathers 

 yellow at the base, blackish at the ends, the central ones largely blackish ; lores 

 blackish ; a broad superciliary yellow stripe ; ear-coverts grey ; sides of face and 

 cheeks yellow, the latter somewhat greyish ; under parts yellow, becoming whitish 

 on the abdomen ; flanks greyish ; beak flesh-coloured, darker towards the tip ; feet 

 horn-brown ; iris hazel. The female is similar in pattern to the male, but slightly 

 smaller, much duller and browner, the feathers of the head and mantle with dark 

 shaft-streaks ; the underparts also are less yellow. After the moult the margins 

 of the feathers are paler, and the yellow less bright ; but in the spring, as with 

 many other species, the tints become purer and more lively. The young are very 

 like the mother bird, but the feathers are somewhat more streaked ; they acquire 

 the adult plumage after their first moult ; but the colouring does not attain its 

 greatest brilliancy in the first year. 



During the summer months the Greenfinch is a somewhat skulking bird, and 

 chiefly haunts the borders of woods, parks, plantations, shrubberies, gardens, and 

 dense hedgerows ; but in the winter it may often be seen feeding in company with 

 Sparrows, Chaffinches, and Buntings, in stubble-fields, farms, and gardens. Except- 

 ing when feeding its young, the song may frequently be heard ; it is always bright 

 and clear, and some individuals sing remarkably well, reminding one somewhat of 

 a Norwich Canary ; only, unfortunately the song is always interrupted at the end 

 of a phrase or two by a harsh zshweer, and terminated with the same disagreeable 

 note. The call-note is a sound like tirri, or a shrill sharp chirp, somewhat resemb- 

 ling the chink of the Chaffinch ; the call of defiance is the same as the harsh note 

 introduced into its song ; the call of the young for food resembles that of many 

 Finches chiwi or chirri. 



The nest is very frequently placed in hawthorn hedges ; indeed I once found 

 three nests of this bird within a distance of two yards, two of them being only a 

 foot apart, and all three at a height of about five feet from the ground ; it is also 

 commonly placed in clumps of tall furze-bushes ; I have also found it in laurus- 

 tinus bushes, in ivy on walls, in the forks of low trees, chiefly yews and spruce-firs, 

 and a friend found me a nest among the twigs sprouting from the stump of a 

 branch, cut from a tall oak (about eight feet from the ground) this being placed 

 at a greater elevation than any other nest of the species which I have met with ; 

 Seebohm, however, speaks of the Greenfinch sometimes selecting a site " fifty feet 

 or more from the ground, in a fork of an elm, or even in a cavity in the trunk." 



The nest varies considerably, the thickness of the walls being from one to 

 two inches, and usually very firmly, though occasionally loosely constructed ; the 

 depth of some nests is also double that of others ; as regards materials I 



VOL. 11. H 



