348 THE BULLFINCH, 
mole-hill, or the old furrow of a plough. It is very well concealed, the top 
of the nest being only just on a level with the surface of the ground, and 
sometimes below it. I have known several instances where the young Larks 
would suffer themselves to be fed by hand as they sat in their nests, but the 
parent birds always seemed distressed at the intrusion into their premises. 
The materials of which it is made are dry grasses, bents, leaves, and hair, 
the hair being generally used in the lining. It will be seen that the sober 
colouring of those substances renders the nest so uniform in tint with the 
surrounding soil, that to discover it is no easy matter. The eggs are four or 
five in number, and their colour is grey-yellow, washed with light brown, 
and speckled with brown of a darker hue. They are laid in May, and are 
hatched in about a fortnight. 
Towards the end of autumn and throughout the winter the Lark becomes 
very gregarious, “ packing” in flocks of thousands in number, and becoming 
very fat when snow should cover the ground, in which case they speedily 
lose their condition. These flocks are often augmented by the arrival of 
numerous little flocks from the Continent that come flying over the sea about 
the end of autumn, so that the bird catchers generally reap a rich harvest in 
a sharp winter. 
THE next group is that of the Pyrrhuline, of which our BULLFINCH is a 
familiar example. 
It cares little for open country, preferring cultivated grounds, woods, and 
copses, and is very fond of orchards and 
fruit-gardens, finding there its greatest 
supply of food. This bird seems to feed 
almost wholly on buds during their season, 
and is consequently shot without mercy by 
the owners of fruit-gardens. The Bull- 
finch has a curious propensity for selecting 
those buds which would produce fruit, se 
that the leafage of the tree is not at all 
diminished. Although the general verdict 
of the garden-keeping public goes against 
the Bulfinch, there are, nevertheless, some 
owners of gardens who are willing to say 
a kind word for Bully, and who assert that 
its mischievous propensities have been 
much overated. 
It is true that the bird will oftentimes 
set hard to work upon a fruit-tree, and 
BULLFINCH.—(Pyrrhiua rubicilla.) ‘uthlessly strip off every single flower-bud, 
fe thereby destroying to all appearance the 
prospects of the crop for that season. Yet there are cases when a goose- 
berry-bush has thus been completely disbudded, and yet borne a heavy crop 
of fruit. The reason of this curious phenomenon may probably be, that some 
of the buds were attacked by insects, and that the kind of pruning process 
achieved by the Bullfinch was beneficial rather than hurtful to the plant. 
The Bullfinch affords a curious instance of the change wrought by 
domestication. In its natural state its notes are by no means remarkable, 
but its memory is so good, and its powers of imitation so singular, that it 
can be taught to pipe tunes with a sweet and flute-like intonation, having 
some of that peculiar “ woody ” quality that is observable in the flute. - 
Those who desire to find the nest of the Bullfinch must search in the 
thickets and most retired parts of woods or copses, and they may perhaps 
find the nest hidden very carefully away in some leafy branch at no great 
