Chaffinch, or Bachelor Bird. 



67 



Selborne says : — " I see every winter vast flocks of hen 

 Chaffinches, but none of cocks." 



NoWj I have been observing the Chaffinch^ one of our 

 most familiar birds, for several years throughout all the 

 winter and summer, and have never known the sexes so to 

 separate. In all cases where there were flocks, the cocks 

 and hens seemed to be in about equal numbers, or at 

 least no difference worth noting ; and Mr. Knapp, the 

 author of " The Journal of a Naturalist," bears similar 



CHAFFINCH. 



testimony of them. He says, "With us the sexes do not 

 separate at any period of the year, the flocks frequenting 

 our barn doors and homesteads in winter being composed 

 of both." Mr. Knapp's observations were made in 

 Gloucestershire on the left bank of the Severn; mine chiefly 

 in the valley of the Wye. So, if those of Linnaeus and 

 Gilbert White be correct, then the habits of the birds 

 in these western shires must difier from what they are 

 elsewhere, even in our own islands — a somewhat singular 

 circumstance. 



