44 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. 



Caucasus, and possibly to Northern Persia and Tiirkestan. On the African Conti- 

 nent a few examples breed in Algeria, and the species has been known to straggle 

 as far northward as Egypt. 



In Great Britain the Hawfinch is local, being rare in Wales and the extreme 

 western counties from Cornwall to Cumberland ; but breeding in suitable localities 

 in most of the counties of England and in Ireland. To Scotland it is an accidental 

 winter visitant. 



Although the form of the Hawfinch is anything but graceful, its colouring is 

 rather pleasing : The adult male has the head of a cinnamon brown colour, a line 

 round the base of the bill, the lores, chin, and throat, black ; the nape is smoky 

 grey ; the back and scapulars dull chestnut, somewhat paler on the rump, and 

 becoming rather yellower on the upper tail-coverts ; wings bluish black, the median 

 coverts white ; the quills with a white patch near the middle of their inner webs, 

 gradually increasing on the inner feathers, and tipped with blue ; the tail-coverts 

 cinnamon brown, much elongated ; tail feathers black, white at the extremity of 

 the inner webs : under surface of body pale Dove-brown, fading to white on the 

 under tail-coverts : beak in summer bluish grey, darker at the tip ; in winter 

 brownish flesh-coloured ; feet flesh-coloured ; iris whitish. The female is duller in 

 colour, with the white markings less pure. The young are without black on the 

 throat, or grey on the nape ; the head is also yellower, and the under surface of 

 the body whiter ; the mantle is mottled, and the breast and flanks are barred with 

 dark brown. 



The Hawfinch is resident with us ; but it is probable that at least some of 

 the young leave our shores at the approach of winter, their places being taken by 

 immigrants from the north : in the autumn they not infrequently fly into the nets 

 of the birdcatchers, and are disposed of at very moderate prices. During the 

 summer months the Hawfinch is an exceedingly shy bird, and is far more frequently 

 heard than seen ; its call-note, consisting of a whistle four times repeated, and 

 drawn out at the finish, being familiar to most frequenters of its haunts ; the harsh 

 Greenfinch-like sound, sometimes mistaken for its call-note, is probably its cry of 

 defiance. The song is a very inferior performance of short duration, somewhat like 

 that of an inferior Greenfinch. 



The Hawfinch frequents well-wooded localities, such as forest-clearings, small 

 woods, plantations, shrubberies, heavily timbered parks, where patches of yews or 

 hawthorn and bramble are left to break the monotony of the landscape, and old 

 orchards ; in such places it builds, varying the site of the nest according to the 

 haunt which it frequents ; thus in a wood or clearing it usually makes its home 

 in some old hawthorn, tangled with blackberry, vines, or in a holly, or on the 



