NOVEMBER 223 



twenty years. They breed, often quite early in the 

 year in February or March, wherever they may happen 

 to be when they feel the impulse to do so, and thus lead 

 a free Bohemian existence which brings them but 

 rarely within the ken of the south-country naturalist, 

 though further afield, in the old pine-woods of the 

 Grampians, they are always to be met with. 



About the fields and lanes the varied tribes of finches 

 and buntings now appear to be the all-prevailing 

 birds. One notes with pleasure the extent to which 

 the Goldfinch has benefitted from protective legislation. 

 The " charms " of goldfinches which are to be seen 

 about overgrown fallows and weedy field-borders, 

 are far more numerous and stronger in point of numbers 

 than was the case twenty years ago. And wherever 

 there is arable land, how thickly chaffinches and 

 yellow-hammers people the hedge-rows. If a census 

 of the feathered tribes of the British Isles could be 

 taken, one or the other would, we feel sure, easily 

 distance all competitors, not excepting the house- 

 sparrow. For while the sparrow is a hanger-on to 

 civilization, and is quite rare in some districts, as 

 amongst the Welsh uplands, finch and bunting are 

 everywhere. Coming from a party of the latter, one 

 may hear on a bright day in November what sounds 

 like a variant of the yellow-hammer's refrain, but a 

 nearer approach shows that the author is a CM Bunting, 

 who shows his black throat as he puts up his head to 



