THE HAWFINCH. 311 



with other species, as at night they quit the other 

 birds and betake themselves to the holly, or hr, or 

 other evergreens, when, after flying awhile around 

 the tree, they roost for the night. 



A less generally known bird is the Hawfinch* 

 [Coccothraustes vulgaris). It has a remarkably 

 strong, conical bill, very thick at the base, and 

 admirably adapted for breaking the stones of 

 fruits and extracting the kernel, or for opening 

 the beech-nuts, of which it is very fond. Though 

 unfrequent in some parts of Britain, yet in others, 

 as in Epping Forest, it is numerous ; and it is 

 a common bird in Germany, Norway, Sweden, 

 and Russia. In some places it remains all the 

 year, and well deserves to be enumerated among 

 our wild songsters, though, from its shy and se- 

 cluded habits, its song is not so generally known 

 as that of most of our singing-birds. Mr. Selby 

 remarks of the hawfinch, that it probably utters 



* The Hawfinch is seven inches in length. Upper parts chest- 

 nut, paling to fawn colour on the head and neck ; wings black, 

 crossed by a broad band of white ; tail black, tipped with white ; 

 the space between the eye and the beak, the chin and throat, deep 

 black; under parts pale brown; beak blue; feet light brown. 

 The wing-quills from the fifth to the ninth have their tips sin- 

 gularly notched on one vane, and curved over on the other. 



