248 fringillidjE. 



the sexes do not separate with us, and Mr. Knapp makes a similar 

 remark with reference to Gloucestershire. White frequently ob- 

 served large flocks of females about Selborne in Hampshire. Mr. 

 Selby has noticed the females as keeping apart from the males, in 

 Northumberland ; and Sir Wm. Jardine remarks, respecting the 

 south of Scotland, that young males are intermixed with the females. 

 I have seen very large flocks in the north of Ireland, in which there 

 were no males, and once during frost in the month of December, 

 killed nine out of a flock, all of which proved to be females. 

 Again, I have observed flocks of moderate size, consisting of a fair 

 proportion of both sexes, and have always considered them to be 

 our indigenous birds. The others, I am disposed to beUeve, from 

 never having met with flocks of male birds, had migrated to 

 this island from more northern latitudes, where they left their 

 mates behind : — in the north of Europe, associations consisting 

 of males only, have been observed during winter. 



In July, 1840, Mr. E. Davis, junr., of Clonmel, forwarded to 

 Belfast, for my inspection, a bird killed in that neighbourhood, 

 and sent to him as a white chaffinch. It had frequently been 

 seen in company with chaffinches, and was shot along with 

 them, in the preceding month of May. It is thus described in 

 my notes : — " This bird, which is singularly and beautifully 

 marked, is of the full adult size of the chaffinch in every 

 measurement. The prevailing colour of its plumage is pure white, 

 but the head is tinted with yellow ; the entire back is of the 

 richest canary-yellow; wing and tail-coverts likewise delicately 

 tinted with that colour. A few of the blackish-gray and 

 cinnamon-brown feathers of the ordinary chaffinch appear as 

 follows : — one or two on the head, some on the back, and 

 some very few on the wings and tail, but altogether they are 

 inconspicuous. The primaries and the long tail-feathers, as well 

 as their shafts, are pure white. The plumage, on the whole, 

 partakes as much of that of the canary as of the chaffinch." 

 Mr. J. Y. Stewart mentions a white chaffinch being shot in his 

 neighbourhood. In May, 1844, two young birds of this species 

 connected together by a fleshy ligament, like that of the Siamese 



