THE MOUNTAIN-FINCH. 67 



various fruits and seeds that are found on these, but rarely 

 the buds, and prefer evergreens for roosting at night. 



Mountain-finches are rather arctic birds, and have, perhaps, 

 few of the order inhabiting north of them except the snow- 

 buntings ; the finches being on the northern verge of the 

 forests, where these begin to subside in height or to become 

 straggling, and the buntings where ligneous vegetables are 

 still more rare and stunted. As is the case with many of the 

 arctic birds, it is said to be subject to seasonable variations 

 of colour, though these are slight compared with what takes 

 place in those birds which inhabit as far northward or upland 

 as to be without the shelter of even shrubby vegetation. 

 There is also more difference between the colour of the sexes 

 than in the two species last mentioned. 



The length is about six inches and a half, the extent of the 

 wings ten and a half, and the weight rather more than an 

 ounce. 



The male, when it visits Britain, has the bill yellowish, and 

 black at the tip ; the head, cheeks, and nape, with the centres 

 of the feathers, mottled with different tints of yellowish brown 

 and grey : the throat, breast, scapulars, and lesser coverts, 

 reddish brown ; the coverts of the secondary quills black, with 

 pale orange brownish tips : the greater quills black with a 

 white spot at the base, and the outer webs margined with pale 

 whitish yellow ; the flanks and sides buff orange with dusky 

 spots ; the rest of the under parts yellowish white ; and the 

 tail-feathers black, edged with yellowish grey, except the 

 exterior ones, which are edged with white. 



The principal change in the breeding season consists in the 

 disappearance of the brown and grey mottling on the head 

 and neck, which then become pure black, and in a general 

 deepening of tint in the whole upper part, as well as of the 

 brown on the breast \ and where the head becomes pure black, 

 the base of the bill changes to a bluish colour. 



F2 



