BRAMBLING. 77 



in North Lincolnshire Mr. Cordeaux has always found these 

 singly. In this respect therefore the hahits of the Bram- 

 bling resemble those of the Chaffinch. Several observers in 

 this island have recorded the vast extent of the migrating 

 flocks noticed by them, as in the case which Mr. R. Gray 

 quotes, where in Stirlingshire in January 1867, a column of 

 birds a quarter of a mile long and fifteen yards broad was seen 

 passing overhead, but at no great height every slight altera- 

 tion in the flight of the leaders being copied by their followers, 

 giving the whole mass a strange, serpent-like appearance ; or 

 again in the instances referred to by Mr. Stevenson, in one of 

 which a flock was seen on a March morning in 1865, stream- 

 ing from its roosting-place in Stoke park, near Slough, without 

 intermission for thirty-five minutes, and forty-five birds were 

 killed at a single shot by the observer. Yet the numbers 

 that visit us seem insignificant compared with the swarms 

 that in some seasons occur on the continent, for Bech- 

 stein states that in 1780, which was a great year for beech- 

 mast, some hundred-thousand frequented the foot of the 

 Thiiringerwald, and that the like was the case in 1804 and 

 1805. As vast must have been the hosts which, according 

 to De Montbeillard, appeared on the Rhine in 1735 and 1757, 

 and in Lorraine in 1765, when every night more than six- 

 hundred dozens were killed, while large flocks visited Burgun- 

 dy in 1774, and Wurttemberg in December, 1775. M. de la 

 Fontaine computes a flight which appeared in Luxemburg 

 in February, 1865, to have numbered sixty millions ! 



They are not known with certainty to have bred with us 

 except in captivity, and it is seldom that an example in 

 full plumage is found at large in this country. As regards 

 date, the latest occurrence of the species in any season is 

 probably that mentioned by Bailde and Heddle in Orkney, 

 May 19th, 1839. A long search in various publications fails 

 to shew that it is often seen later than the middle of March, 

 by which time it has usually left Britain, one must therefore 

 receive with caution the statements which have been made 

 as to its breeding in England. Those in H. L. Meyer's 

 ' British Birds ' may for various reasons be justifiably dis- 



