THE HAWFINCH. 259 



I have known greenlinnets taken young at Fort- William, near 

 Belfast, that after being kept for some little time, were given their 

 liberty every morning. In the evening they returned as regularly 

 to their cage to roost, as in a wild state they would have done 

 to their favourite tree or shrub.* Old birds very soon become 

 tame after capture. 



The only food which I have found in the stomachs of a number 

 of these birds killed during winter was grain and seeds of different 

 kinds ; — in addition to which there were fragments of brick or stone. 



THE HAWFINCH. 



Grosbeak. 



Coccothraustes vulgaris, Flein. 

 Loxia coccothraustes, Linn. 

 Fringitta „ Temm. 



Is an occasional winter visitant. 



A very fine specimen was shot near Hillsborough, county of Down, 

 upwards of twenty years ago. In the winter of 1832-33 (?), the 

 Rev. G. M. Black observed a pair of these birds feeding for a long 

 time upon the haws of some old thorn-trees at Stranmillis, near 

 Belfast ; — he managed to approach within about fifteen paces, so 

 as to see them weU. Mr. J. Y. Stewart, in his paper on the 

 Birds, &c, of Donegal, gives the following interesting account of 

 two of these birds, which he killed and examined anatomically. 

 The communication is dated from Ards House, Dec. 4th, 1828 : — 



" I shot a pair of these birds a few days ago, in fine plumage ; the first instance, 

 I believe, of their occurring in Ireland. Their strength of beak, as compared with 

 the size of the bird, is quite wonderful ; it results from very strong and large muscles, 

 which, extending on either side from the eye to the occiput [hind head] reach from 

 the lower mandible to the top of the cranium, where they meet ; they are separated 

 from the eyes by deep bony ridges, to which they are firmly attached. By contract- 

 ing these muscles, which are thus so firmly attached to the skull, it exerts such a 

 force as enables it to crack, with its hard and strong bill, the thick stone of the haw- 



* The canary-finch will rarely do this. But oDe which flew away from its cage at 

 Cromac, one morning in the beginning of September, returned on the following 

 morning at au early hour before any of the inmates of the house were up, and made 

 known its presence by tapping at one of the windows with its bill. On a cage being 

 presented, the bird flew eagerly into it. 



s 2 



