Cuarrincu. PASSERES. FRINGILLA. O71 
males, in a number of our summer visitants, precedes that of 
the females by many days; a fact from which we might infer 
that in such species a similar separation exists between the 
sexes during their equatorial migration. 
As these birds are very early breeders, the male chaffinch 
utters his love-notes almost as soon as the thrush or gold- 
crested regulus.—They build in various situations upon the 
trees and bushes, sometimes amidst the ivy encircling their 
trunks, at other times in the forks of smaller branches, and 
very frequently in old apple trees, overgrown with moss and 
lichens.—The nest exhibits great symmetry and beauty, and Nest, &c. 
is formed of different mosses and lichens, closely interwoven 
with wool, and warmly lined with feathers and hair ; in its 
outward appearance, always accordant with the particular 
colour of its situation. 'The eggs are four or five in number, 
of a bluish-white, tinged with jamie and marked with streaks 
and spots of purplish-red.—In summer the chaffinch feeds Food. 
much upon insects and their larvae, and I have witnessed its 
assiduity, during the autumn, in devouring the females of a 
large species of aphis, that infests the trunks and stronger 
branches of the larch, and some cther kinds of fir. In win- 
ter, grain and other seeds constitute its food. 
It is a species widely disseminated, and found in almost all 
parts of Europe, being sedentary in the warmer provinces, but 
migratory in those situated to the northward. 
PratE 54. Fig. 6. <A male bird in the spring eee 
| and of the natural size. 
Bill clear greyish-blue, with the tip black. Crown of the Genera? 
head and nape of the neck deep greyish-blue. Back gest: 
chesnut-brown ; the teathers being margined with yel- Male. 
lowish-grey. Rump deep sulphur-yellow. Lesser wing- 
coverts white; those of the primary quills, and the bas- 
tard wing entirely black ; secondary eoverts black, tip- 
ped with primrose-yellow. The three first quills black, 
having the outer web margined with white; the rest, 
