BRAMBLING 67 
FRINGILLA MONTIFRINGILLA, Linn. 
BRAMBLING. 
A bird whose favourite British haunts are old beech 
woods is not likely to find a congenial abiding place in 
Man. In a note to his 1880 list, Mr. Kermode says: ‘Some 
in Mr, Crellin’s fine collection at Orrisdale. Mr. Jeffcott 
tells me he has seen them, not infrequently in little flocks, 
with Chaffinches.’ 
On 13th February 1892 a male was shot at ‘ Lewthwaite’s 
Mill, near Douglas. Mr. F. W. Leach wrote Mr. Kermode 
that on 23rd February 1897 he had noticed one or two 
among a small flock of Chaffinches near Douglas, This 
number was ‘considerably augmented by fresh arrivals, 
apparently from the west of the island.’ On March Ist 
‘a flock now numbering about fifty’ (among which were 
one or two Snow Buntings) was feeding in a disused quarry. 
This was the phenomenal year of frost and snow. 
Mr. Leach writes me in 1903 that he meets with it 
near Douglas almost every year in February and March, 
and that in the winter of 1902-3 they were there fairly 
numerous. 
On 21st February Mr. Graves saw one at Ballamoar, 
Patrick, in a flock of other small birds. One Brambling is 
recorded at the Chickens with a number of other birds on 
11th December 1887. 
An erratic winter visitor to Great Britain, but usually 
scarcer in the west, the species occurs irregularly over 
Ireland also. Mr. Macpherson states that it is a ‘ tolerably 
regular winter visitor to the Solway plain and the Eden 
valley. In most winters it is not plentiful in Galloway, 
but sometimes very abundant. 
