84 BRITISH BIRDS. 



crassirostris, " As in other South- African Larks, great variation in size of bill 

 exists in the present species." Great variation in size exists in so many birds 

 when you have a large series of each, that I suspect it would be discovered 

 in the great majority of species could the opportunity of comparison be 

 obtained. An enormous stream of Dutch Larks landed somewhere about 

 Beachy Head during the snow of 1874-75; and these birds, joined by ours, 

 passed Brighton, December 16 and 17, 1874. 



The " Dutch Larks " never stay here ; they return when the pressure 

 is over. Of Goldfinches some go, some stop : many more go than remain ; 

 about three fourths of the whole depart. There is a plant called button-weed 

 found in moist situations in meadows, the seeds of which no Goldfinch can 

 resist, Darwin says the Goldfinch eats " the seeds of teazle (^Dipsacus) and 

 betony or Scrophidaria." During the summer and autumn this bird feeds upon 

 these plants ; but in winter, as all the seeds are shaken out, the Goldfinch is 

 a ground-bird as far as food is concerned. I have, indeed, seen it in flocks 

 in oak trees at that period ; but commonly it must get its living below. Food 

 must then be scarce ; and only those remain which the land can support. 

 Therefore hunger perhaps is the chief incentive ; but migratory impulse may 

 act also. Before leaving this species, I may say that it is a rapidly decreasing 

 one in the south of England : formerly the Goldfinches passed Brighton in 

 flocks ; now they come a few together. It is not, however, here only that the 

 slaughter goes on ; in every part it is the same. 



A man who had been fifty years a birdcatcher told me that before eight 

 o'clock one morning he caught 25 dozen, all hens, long ago. At that time 

 there was no railway. He sold them all at Shoreham, and they went to the 

 north in ships. They fetched 2d. each. He caught 10 dozen at one pull 

 once, being the whole flight as it came along. I do not indorse these 

 statements ; but great numbers used to be captured. 



It does not appear that our people eat the Goldfinches ; but Lieut. - 

 Col. L. Howard L. Irby, in the ' Ornithology of the Straits of Gibraltar,' 

 p. 122, says that in West Andalucia they appear in countless flocks and 



