50 BIRDS OF THE HUMBER DISTRICT. 



flocks of females and young birds arriving on the 

 coast from about the middle to the end of October,, 

 when they resort for a time in company with Green- 

 finches, Corn -Buntings, and other hard-billed birds to 

 the stubbles; as winter approaches they leave the 

 marshes for the enclosures. Occasionally I have ob- 

 served a few old males in these flocks ; but they are 

 quite the exception, and it is very remarkable how 

 rarely we come across a flock of old males. Chaffinches 

 are sometimes killed by flying against the glass lan- 

 terns of the east-coast light-houses and light-ships ; 

 and I have been told of one instance in which a flock 

 alighted at dusk on the deck of a fishing-smack in the 

 North Sea. 



85. FRINGILLA MONTIFRINGILLA, Linnaeus. 

 Brambling. 



Although small numbers of this pretty Finch visit 

 us nearly every winter, it can scarcely be considered 

 common. We generally meet with a few females and 

 young birds in the marshes during October ; but it is 

 rather singular that every specimen of the old male I 

 have hitherto obtained in North Lincolnshire has 

 been single. During the winter of 1860-61, as Mr. 

 Alington informs me, when the beech-mast was so 

 plentiful, hundreds visited the neighbourhood of S win- 

 hope. Large flocks also arrived in the neighbourhood 

 of Beverley in the autumn of 1864, in which year there 

 was likewise an abundance of beech-mast. The 



