46 BULLFINCH COMMON CROSSBILL. 



Habits. Much like the Linnet, but of slimmer appearance, 

 and more shy than the last. Gregarious in winter. 



Food. Small caterpillars and various seeds. 



Nest. May onwards. Two broods. 



Site. Very low down, or on the ground in bunch of heather, 

 tuft of grass, or furze-bush. 



Materials. Dry grass, rootlets, heather- sprigs, and moss, 

 lined with hair, wool, feathers, and sometimes thistle-down. 



Eggs. Four to six. Pale greenish blue, speckled and spotted 

 with reddish and purplish brown. 



BULLFINCH (Pyrrhula europaa). 



Eesident. Generally distributed in well- wooded localities. 

 More local in Scotland. 



Haunts. Districts abounding in thick bushes and hedges, 

 near woods. 



Plumage. Head, throat, wings, and tail black. Back 

 bluish ash-grey. Sides of neck and under parts salmon-red, 

 except under tail-coverts which are dull white. Bump white 

 and conspicuous. Broad white conspicuous band across wings. 

 Bill black. Legs dark brown. Length 6 in. Female, duller 

 on upper parts ; under parts dove-brown. Young, like female, 

 but without black on head, and wing-bars sordid white. 



Language. The natural song is poor, being short in duration 

 and feeble in utterance, but in captivity its notes are capable of 

 development, when it becomes a good songster. Call-note, a 

 plaintive whistling " wheoo." 



Habits. Gregarious in autumn and winter. In the breeding 

 season it keeps strictly to woods ; obtains its food usually in 

 trees and bushes, seldom on the ground except in winter. 



Food. In summer, aphides, caterpillars, and small seeds. It 

 is said to devour buds of fruit-trees, and is much persecuted on 

 this account. 



Nest. April onwards. Two broods. 



Site. In a thick non-deciduous tree, in hawthorn hedges, 

 &c. 



Materials. Small twigs, roots, and bents, lined with fibres 

 and horsehair. Nest rather flat. 



Eggs. Four to five. Greenish blue, spotted, blotched, and 

 streaked with red and dark purplish brown. 



COMMON CROSSBILL (Loxia curvirostra). 



An irregular migrant ; breeding only in certain pine-woods 

 in Scotland and Ireland ; elsewhere met with irregularly in 

 winter, usually in small flocks. 



