.202 Frinyillidcv. 



we have seen with other species, is too apt to breed contempt 

 Towards winter it used to be seen in flocks ; and commons which 

 -abounded in thistles, or fields where those weeds ripened their 

 seed, were the haunts which it loved to frequent, and where it 

 made its choicest banquet. 



I regret to say that, unlike the species last described, it is 

 rapidly diminishing in numbers with us, and within my own 

 memory is not nearly so abundant as when I was young ; but 

 this was inevitable, as every year has seen waste lands and 

 commons taken into cultivation, and thistle-beds done away. 

 Canon Goddard, who has always been a close observer of birds, 

 has called my special attention to this. He says : 'It is remark- 

 able how very rare the Goldfinch has become in North Wilts. It 

 cannot be that its food is deficient ; for it would naturally flourish 

 on agricultural distress, being a consumer of the seeds of weeds ! 

 But I have not seen a Goldfinch here (Hilmarton) for several 

 years, and yet it formerly abounded here above measure, and it 

 is the most prolific of birds. An invalid parishioner, living in a 

 solitary cottage in this parish, some years ago, very late in the 

 year (I think in October), showed me a Goldfinch's nest on an 

 open branch of a larch fir in his garden ; and he said there were 

 four young ones in it, and it was the fourth family the parents 

 had reared that season, each family consisting of four young 

 birds.' But if getting very scarce, as I am afraid it is, through- 

 out England generally, and as it certainly is in Wiltshire, on tlio 

 Continent it is still common enough. Thus on the shores of the 

 Mediterranean its numbers are very great, and in France and 

 Italy, and the East, I have met with it in large flocks, but no- 

 where so abundant as in Portugal. 



Professor Steenstrup, in some very interesting observations on 

 this species, called attention to the preference it showed for the 

 pith of willow, lime, and thorn boughs, and the mode in which 

 the bird procures it. This he described as being effected by 

 picking off the bud, and then stripping the bark, an operation 

 in which the bird's longicone beak is a very apt tool.* 

 * See Ibis, for 1866, p. 212. 



