HAWFINCH. 
.‘3 
more Mpless by degrees, died on the 21st of December. The survivor had for some weeks also been showing 
unmistakable signs that old age was working its course, and it was now evident the end was drawing near 
Once or twice the unfortunate half-blind cripple was discovered lying on his back on the sand on the bottom 
boards quite helpless, but, on receiving assistance, he came round and kept up till found huddled into 
a ball, cold and stiff, in a corner of Ins cage on the morning of the lltli of January, 1880. Nearly eleven vears 
old must be considered a good age for hand-reared birds, as I have frequently heard naturalists, and others who 
considered themselves good authorities, declare that this species could not be kept for any length of time in 
captivity. A liberal and varied diet may, however, be supposed to account for their prolonged vitality. After 
death, the old couple who had spent their lives side by side for so many years wore not divided ; my '-ardeners 
at Brighton, who performed the work of the undertakers, dug up the box in which the first was interred and 
inserting the remains of the second, replaced “the chest”* in the long grass, beneath the weeping-willows, 
that forms the burial-ground for the birds kept in confinement. 
Yarrell states, “ The bill of the adult male in summer is a deep leaden blue ” ; this does not agree with 
observations I made, having remarked, in both wild specimens shot and caged birds reared in confinement, that 
though the base was of that tint, the points of both mandibles were a dull black, the colour penetrating further 
back towards the gape of the mouth. One or two of our British authors declare that many of this species leave 
our shores in winter ; the young they consider most probably are the migrants. During all the time I have 
passed steaming about in the North Sea and the Channel, in the latter part of the year, not a single specimen 
was ever observed on wing, nor did I hear of their being secured on the light-ships round our eastern or southern 
coasts. Seebohm, in his beautifully illustrated book on the eggs of British Birds, tells us that the Hawfinch 
pairs about the middle of April ; and this remark agrees with my own experience, as I am of opinion that their 
nests are usually commenced shortly after that date. The cradles of the Hawfinch are roughly constructed 
and put together on the outside, strong and prickly twigs being occasionally entwined ; the interior, however, 
is usually finished off with far greater skill, the lining being composed of fine materials, hair, wool, and 
occasionally feathers being twisted in together. The only two nests I examined were placed in the limbs of 
the same old pear-tree in the garden at Plumpton, at a height of about eight or nine feet from the ground. 
* This is the name given to an oak coffin by the natives of the Broad district in the east of Norfolk. 
