46 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. 



Lilford says : " My two caged Hawfinches * * readily devoured meal-worms and 

 house-flies, but I imagine that this is an unnatural and acquired taste." In this 

 I think his Lordship is in error, for there can be nothing unnatural in a bird 

 largely reared upon partly digested caterpillars, subsequently eating mealworms. 

 Ripe apples would probably be a welcome addition to its prison-diet ; for, according 

 to my friend Mr. Horatio Fillmer, of Brighton, the Black-tailed Hawfinch is 

 especially fond of fruit. 



As a pet the Hawfinch has but little to recommend it ; it is not a pretty bird, 

 is quarrelsome, spiteful, and can on no account be trusted in an aviary with any 

 species weaker than itself. It is, moreover, fully as much trouble to its owner in 

 respect of food as many a far more attractive species : yet, according to the Rev. 

 H. A. Macpherson, it has one merit ; although its own song is insignificant, the 

 Hawfinch is not wholly destitute of the imitative faculty. In my friend Charles 

 A. Witchell's interesting work on the "Evolution of Bird-song," we read (p. 172): 

 " Even so poor a songster as the Hawfinch will imitate when a captive. The Rev. 

 H. A. Macpherson informs me that they will pick up any sounds." 



Nevertheless, when a bird has no beauty of form, and when its colouring is 

 little superior to that of a hen Chaffinch, its song should compensate for other 

 deficiencies ; and, as Major Alexander von Homeyer remarks (Gefiederte Welt, 

 Vol. XX, p. 489) the cherry-kernel biter is " not gifted with natural song." 



It appears to me that, in dealing with British birds, it is far more convenient 

 to introduce the Bullfinches (the so-called Grosbeaks) immediately after the true 

 Grosbeaks : in their habits they are not dissimilar ; whereas, to place them, as 

 Howard Saunders has done in his " Manual," between the more slender-billed 

 Finches and the Buntings, seems rather unnatural : I have, therefore, not followed 

 him in this respect. 



There is not the least doubt that, so far as their habits are concerned, the 

 most typical Finches (that is the members of the genus Fringilla) approach far 

 more closely to the Buntings than any other species of the Subfamily, and next 

 to Fringilla, I should consider Passer (in spite of its aberrant nest) to show relation- 

 ship to the Ember izince : I speak as an Aviculturist of course, and do not venture 

 to criticize the classification from a structural standpoint. 



