WATCHING BIRDS AT A STRAW-STACK 203 



central crowd have, of course, no pretensions to any- 

 thing like distinguished beauty, but there is one bird 

 — one, unfortunately, not only as a species but indi- 

 vidually — that may, perhaps, stand up in rivalry even 

 with the brambling. 



This is a solitary male goldfinch who, as though 

 knowing the sad and waning state of his clan, feeds 

 all by himself and — as one seems to fancy — in a 

 melancholy manner. Be this as it may, his mode of 

 feeding is quite different to that of the other birds. 

 Whilst all, or nearly all, of these are pecking odds 

 and ends from amongst the straw and draff of the 

 heap, using their beaks only and seeming to swallow 

 something at each little- peck, like chickens with 

 grain, he makes successive little excursions to the 

 stack itself, from which he extracts a blade of corn, 

 a campion, or a thistle-head, and then, standing with 

 the claws of both his feet grasping it (like a crow 

 with a piece of carrion), picks it to pieces and devours 

 it, or the seeds it contains, in a leisurely, almost a 

 phlegmatic, way. This is quite different from the 

 greenfinch, which — as just seen — in extracting the 

 grain from an ear of corn, uses only its bill, standing 

 the while in an ordinary upright attitude, and not 

 pick-axeing down upon it as it lies along the ground. 

 Perhaps the goldfinch can do this too, but as this 

 particular one did not on any morning employ a 

 different method to that which I have described, it 

 must, I should think, be the usual one ; nor did I 

 ever see it pecking up anything from the ground in 

 a careless haphazard fashion, like the other birds. 



One can feed the birds with bread if one likes, and, 

 when found and tasted, this is appreciated. But the 



