MOUNTAIN FINCH. 65 



other species of graminivorous birds, and at other times they 

 have been seen in large numbers by themselves. They are 

 said to be good to eat, but to have a bitter taste. When 

 alarmed, they betake themselves to trees, as do the other 

 birds of the family to which they belong. They seem to be 

 very easily reconciled to confinement, but the late William 

 Thompson, Esq., of Belfast, relates that a pair which were 

 kept in a large cage in a greenhouse with some other birds, 

 made such a noise throughout moonlight nights as to disturb 

 the family, and consequently they had to be removed to 

 another place. Bewick says, quoting Buffon, that in France 

 they appear sometimes in immense numbers, and that in 

 one year they were so numerous that more than six hundred 

 dozen were killed each night during the greater part of the 

 winter. It is not said, however, whether this was in one 

 locality, or the total produce of the whole country, which 

 latter again it would be next to impossible even to arrive at 

 a proximate guess at, as no previous preparation would have 

 been made for taking a 'census' of these unexpected strangers. 

 I should rather therefore imagine that they have to be set 

 down as the results of the 'long bow,' rather than of the 

 gun or the net. 



Their flight is rapid and undulated. They roost in trees, 

 seeming to give a preference to plantations of fir and larch. 



The food of this species consists of grain, the seeds of the 

 grasses and other plants, and beech-mast. It forages in the 

 fields, in company with birds of other species, until driven by 

 stress of weather and the absence of supply to the neigh- 

 bourhood of the homestead, where it picks up anything it 

 can meet with on the ground, but it does not seem to 

 pilfer from the stacks. 



Its note is ordinarily a single monotonous chirp, resembling 

 the syllable 'tweet,' but in the spring of the year it has a 

 pleasing warble a succession of low notes, ended by a more 

 hoarse and protracted one. Meyer likens it to the words 

 'chip-u-way.' 



The nest is placed in lofty fir and other trees, is formed 

 of moss, and lined with wool and feathers. K. Dashwood, 

 Esq., of Beccles, Suffolk, had these birds lay, in two instances, 

 in the year 1839; and in the latter the eggs were hatched. 

 His aviary is a large one, enclosing a considerable space of 

 ground, and is surrounded with ivy, and planted inside with 

 shrubs. If birds are to be kept in confinement at all, some 



