118 



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from their nests when about ten days old, 

 and brought up with facility ; but in England 

 they are seldom kept in cages, as their song 

 is thought to possess no variety, and they 

 are not apt imitators of other song-birds. 

 In Thuringia, however, it is said, there is 

 quite a passion for keeping them, and they 

 accordingly fetch high prices there. 



Let us not suppose, however, that the 

 Chaffinch is without a friendly advocate in 

 this country. That he is esteemed by at 

 least one person, and that person a naturalist 

 of no mean calibre, the following extract 

 from the Ornithological Eseays of Mr. 

 Waterton afford undoubted evidence : 

 " Amongst all the pretty warblers," says he, 

 " which flit from bush to bush before me, as 

 I wander through the flowery fields, next to 

 poor cock robin, the chaffinch is my favourite 

 bird. I see him almost at every step. He 

 is in the fruit and forest trees, and in the 

 lowly hawthorn : he is on the house-top, 

 and on the ground close to your feet. You 

 may observe him on the stack-bar, and on 

 the dunghill ; on the king's highway, in 

 the fallow field, in the meadow, in the 

 pasture, and by the margin of the stream. 

 If his little pilferings on the beds of early 

 radishes alarm you for the return of the 

 kitchen garden, think, I pray you, how 

 many thousands of seeds he consumes, 

 which otherwise would be carried by the 

 wind into your choicest quarters of cultiva- 

 tion, and would spring up there, most sadly 

 to your cost. Think again of his continual 

 services at your barn door, where he lives 

 throughout the winter, chiefly on the un- 

 profitable seeds, which would cause you 

 endless trouble were they allowed to lie 

 in the straw and to be carried out with it 

 into the land, on the approach of spring. 



" His nest is a paragon of perfection. 

 He attaches lichen to the outside of it, 

 by means of the spider's slender web. In 

 the year 1805, when I was on a plantation 

 in Guiana, I saw the humming-bird making 

 use of the spider's web in its nidification ; 

 and then the thought struck me that our 

 chaffinch might probably make use of it 

 too. On my return to Europe, I watched 

 a chaffinch busy at its nest : it left it, and 

 flew to an old wall, took a cobweb from it, 

 then Conveyed it to its nest, and interwove 

 it with the lichen on the outside of it. Four 

 or five eggs are the usual number which the 

 chaffinch's nest contains ; and sometimes 

 only three. The thorn, and most of the 

 evergreen shrubs, the sprouts on the boles of 

 forest trees, the woodbine, the whin, the 

 wild rose, and occasionally the bramble, are 

 this bird's favourite places for nidification. 

 Like all its congeners, it never covers its 

 eggs on retiring from the nest, for its young 

 are hatched blind. There is something 

 peculiarly pleasing to me in the song of this 

 bird. Perhaps association of ideas may add 

 a trifle to the value of its melody ; for when 

 I hear the first note of the chaffinch, I 

 know that winter is on the eve of his depar- 

 ture, and that sunshine and fine weather 

 are not far off. * * * The chaffinch never 

 sings when on the wing ; but it warbles 

 incessantly on the trees, and on the hedge- 



rows, from the early part of February to the 

 second week in July ; and then (if the bird 

 be in a state of freedom) its song entirely 

 ceases. You may hear the thrush, the lark, 

 the robin, and the wren, sing from time to 

 time in the dreary months of winter ; but 

 you will never, by any chance, have one 

 single note of melody from the chaffinch. 

 Its powers of song have sunk into a deep 

 and long lasting trance, not to be roused by 

 any casualty whatever. All that remains 

 of its voice, lately so sweet and so exhilarat- 

 ing, is the shrill and well-known monotonous 

 call, which becomes remarkably distinct and 

 frequent whenever the cat, the owl, the 

 weasel, or the fox are seen to be on the 

 move. 



" Sad and mournful is the fate which awaits 

 this harmless songster in Belgium and in 

 Holland, and in other kingdoms of the Con- 

 tinent. In your visit to the towns in these 

 countries, you see it outside the window, a 

 lonely prisoner in a wooden cage, which is 

 scarcely large enough to allow it to turn 

 round upon its perch. It no longer enjoys 

 the light of day. Its eyes have been seared 

 with a red-hot iron, in order to increase its 

 powers of song, which, unfortunately for the 

 cause of humanity, are supposed to be 

 heightened and prolonged far beyond their 

 ordinary duration by this barbarous pro- 

 cess. Poor chaffinches, poor choristers, poor 

 little sufferers I My heart aches as I pass 

 along the streets, and listen to your plaintive 

 notes. At all hours of the day we may hear 

 these helpless captives singing (as far as 

 we can judge) in apparent ecstasy. I would 

 fain hope that these pretty prisoners, so 

 woe-begpne, and so steeped in sorrow, to the 

 eye of him who knows their sad story, may 

 have no recollection of those days when they 

 poured forth their wild notes in the woods, 

 free as air, ' the happiest of the happy.' 

 Did they remember the hour when the hand 

 of man so cruelly deprived them both of 

 liberty and eyesight, we should say that 

 they would pine in anguish, and sink down 

 at last, a certain prey to grief and melan- 

 choly. * * * How the song of birds is in- 

 volved in mystery! mystery probably never 

 to be explained. Whilst sauntering up and 

 down the Continent in the blooming month 

 of May, we hear the frequent warbling of 

 the chaffinch ; and then we fancy he is sing- 

 ing solely to beguile the incubation of his 

 female, sitting on her nest in a bush close 

 at hand. But on returning to the town, we 

 notice another little chaffinch, often in some 

 wretched alley, a prisoner with the loss of 

 both its eyes, and singing nevertheless as 

 though its little throat would burst. Does 

 this blind captive pour fourth its melody in 

 order to soothe its sorrows ? Has Omnipo- 

 tence kindly endowed the chaffinch with 

 vocal faculties, which at one time may be 

 employed to support it in distress, and at 

 another time to add to its social enjoyments ? 

 What answer shall we make ? We know 

 not what to say. But be it as it will, I would 

 not put out the eyes of the poor chaffinch, 

 though by doing so I might render its melody 

 ten times sweeter than that of the sweet 

 nightingale itself. O that the potentate, in 



