136 THE BIRDS OF SUSSEX. 



BULLFINCH. 



Pyrrhula europcea. 



In every part of the countyj where there are high hedges or 

 tangled copseSj the whistling call-note of the Bullfinch may 

 be often heard, though the bird itself is naturally wild and 

 retiring, keeping to the interior of the thick bushes, but it 

 will often show itself if one remains perfectly quiet. In 

 spring they enter the gardens, and then have the credit of 

 doing great damage, especially to the gooseberry bushes, by 

 picking off the buds to such an extent that I have been asked 

 to shoot them, though 1 think that the shot often does at 

 least as much harm as would be done by the birds. If you 

 squeeze one of them, and pass your thumb up from below the 

 throatj it will discharge the buds, when you will find that 

 they have been swallowed whole, and though there is the 

 embryo of the blossom in each, I have nevertheless often 

 thought that they do more good than harm, for the crop of 

 gooseberries is generally as great as the bushes ought to bear, 

 and the fruit is the finer for the thinning. 



The nest is constructed of small sticks at the base, most 

 artfully laid together, then comes a first lining of long roots, 

 and, after that, a second of very fine ones. It is often built 

 in a thick bush, or a closely-clipped quickset hedge. At this 

 period of the year it is very tame, and I have known the 

 nest in an Arbor vitse close to my window, also in a Pyra- 

 canthus trained close to the window of a cottage. To the 

 berry of this tree the Bullfinch is especially partial, as it is 

 to the seed of the wild rose, and those of several other berries, 

 though it feeds its young with insects and half-digested 

 green buds. 



