64< ZOOLOGY. 



food on the ground. It does a great deal of damage 

 in cornfields by picking the seeds out of the soil after 

 they have been sown ; but does not take the grain 

 from the ear. It also eats young seedlings. But 

 valuable services more than counterbalance the harm 

 done. When the chaffinches in autumn fly about in 

 large flocks in the fields, they eat an enormous 

 number of weed seeds. The young are chiefly fed 

 with insects, especially with caterpillars. In the 

 spring, when the seeds have germinated and the 

 young corn is not yet ripe, the chafiinch feeds itself 

 also on insects. 



Group : Subulirostres {Awl-heaked Perching Birds). 



Beak slender, awl-shaped, round in transverse sec- 

 tion. A fully developed organ of voice. Feed almost 

 exclusively on insects; there are only a few species 

 which occasionally eat seeds. A few of them, however, 

 sometimes devour juicy fruits (cherries, bird-cherries, 

 elder-berries, juniper-berries, grapes). The birds be- 

 longing to this group, without exception, feed their 

 young on insects. They are of service ; even those 

 species which occasionally do damage are useful on 

 the whole. 



There belong to the Subulirostres — 



The Wagtails (Motacilla), e.g. the White Wagtail 

 {M. alba), usually living in the neighbourhood of 

 water, and seeking its insect food in the fields (often 

 behind the plough), and in pastures and gardens. 



The lark-coloured Pipits {Anthus). 



The_ Hedge Accentor, or " Sparrow " {Accentor mo- 

 dularis), — in garden hedges, and woods, feeding 

 sometimes on seeds. 



The following "warblers:" Nightingale (Daulias 

 luscmia), Robin (Erithacus rubecula), Redstart (Buti- 

 cilla phoenicurus), the Lesser WMtethroat (Sylvia 

 curruca), Garden Warbler (S. hortensis), Willow Wren 

 (S. trochilus), Chiffchaff (S. rufa), Reed Warblers 



