GOI.DFLNCH 
107 
reddish-brown. Hawfinches often exhibit a strong 
appetite for green peas ; but the gardens are few as 
yet where they are sufficiently common visitors to 
have lost their interest and to have been added to 
the list of the pests. They also feed on cherries, 
cracking the stones with their powerful beaks ; but 
the wild varieties are as much, or even more, to 
their taste than the cultivated fruit, and they are 
scarcely to be reckoned at any time of year as 
serious enemies of the fruit-grower. 
GOLDFINCH. 
(Car duel is ekgans.) 
Thistle Finch. — A graceful and beautiful bird in 
all its ways, as well as a favourite songster, the 
Goldfinch has probably suffered more from the 
bird-catcher than any other English species. The 
Wild Birds Protection Acts have had, however, an 
unmistakable effect in checking the decline in its 
numbers during the last ten years, and in some 
districts it is once more becoming a fairly familiar 
bird. With its red, white and black head and 
throat, clear brown back, black and white wings 
and tail, and the conspicuous bright yellow patch 
on the wing which has given it its name, it is very 
bright and striking in plumage, and there is a 
