Mountain Finch. 193 



Its nest is a perfect marvel of artistic skill, most dexterously 

 put together, and then adorned with bits of lichen, applied with 

 .admirable ingenuity on the exterior. In France it is called 

 Pinson; in Spain, Pinzon ; in Portugal, Pim-pim; in Germany, 

 Gemeine Fink ; in Italy, Pinsione ; and in Southern Scandinavia, 

 where it is very abundant, Bo Fink; and in England it is 

 provincially known as Pink, Spink, and Twink, all having re- 

 ference to the sound of its call-note. In olden times the plaintive 

 note of the Chaffinch was interpreted as a sign of rain ; when, 

 therefore, the boys heard it, they first imitated it, and then 

 i-hymingly referred to the expected consequences : 

 'Weet, weet ! dreep, dreep !' 



This is another undoubted benefactor to the agriculturist, for 

 during the summer it subsists and feeds its young almost entirely 

 on insects, and at other seasons devours the minute seeds of in- 

 numerable noxious weeds. Our English word 'Chaffinch,' says 

 Professor Skeat, is 'the finch that delights in chaff;' given to 

 it because it frequents our barndoors and stackyards. 



79. MOUNTAIN FINCH (Fringilla montif ring ilia). 

 This pretty bird, called also the 'Brambling,' though not a 

 regular winter visitant, occurs so frequently as to be by no 

 means uncommon; I have notices of it from several parts of 

 Salisbury Plain, and Mr. B. Hayward told me it occurs on the 

 Lavington Downs occasionally in some numbers ; Mr. Withers 

 said it had often been killed near Devizes, and many of them 

 have passed through his hands ; and during 1858 I received a 

 fine specimen in the flesh from the Rev. F. Goddard, which was 

 killed March 10th at Sopworth, Malmesbury, and is now in my 

 collection*; and was very kindly offered another by the Rev. H. 

 Hare, which was killed at Bradford. Since then I have myself 

 shot it in my garden at Yatesbury, out of a small flock which 

 was occupying some larch trees, and the Rev. A. P. Morres 

 relates that in 1868 it visited the neighbourhood of Salisbury in 

 Chamber's ' Popular Rhymes.' p. 190. 



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