GOLDFINCH 59 
flocked about the stackyards in the north with Chaffinches 
and ‘Green Linnets. Mr, A. Allison tells me that in 
Maughold he used to see from twenty to forty during a 
half-hour’s walk along the high road. About Colby fifty 
years ago they were plentiful; I have there heard their 
extermination attributed to Douglas bird-catchers. Their 
present scarcity is sometimes also ascribed to the better 
cultivation of the land and the comparative want of their 
favourite weeds, as thistles and ‘ bastag-vuigh’ (i.e. Chrysan- 
themum segetwn), but it seems to the writer that such 
plants are still sufficiently abundant in the Isle of Man to 
sustain a large Goldfinch population. If the Manx Gold- 
finches were largely immigrants in autumn from the more 
severe English climate, it may be that their diminution 
here is merely the reflection from causes operating mainly 
in Great Britain or even further off. 
About 1887 Mr. Graves again saw one or two in the 
fruit-garden at Thornton, near Douglas, where he remembers 
the Goldfinch nesting in a chestnut-tree about 1874, and 
within the last decade there have been some signs of 
increase in the species. In the autumn of 1891 and the 
spring of 1892 Mr. J. ©. Crellin observed some in the 
north. In the winter of 1892-93 Mr. H. S. Clarke reported 
a flock of some twenty in Lezayre (Y. ZL. 11.71). In 
the autumn of 1893 Mr. J. C. Crellin recorded ‘numerous 
flocks’ in ‘the north of the island’ (Y. L. M, ii. 204), and 
the Goldfinch was also noticed in the Douglas neighbour- 
hood. About May 1894 some were seen near Colby. In 
the great snow winter, 1894-95, one was caught at Laxey. 
On 25th April 1896 Mr. Crellin notes two seen. On 13th 
March 1897 I saw a small flock close to Laxey village, the 
only living wild Goldfinches I had ever met with in Man, 
until 27th October 1902, on which date a single bird was 
feeding among thistles and ragweeds at Scarlett amidst 
