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FEIN GILLIDiE . 
the sexes do not separate with us, and Mr. Knapp makes a similar 
remark with reference to Gloucestershire. White frequently ob- 
served large flocks of females about Selborne in Hampshire. Mr. 
Selby has noticed the females as keeping apart from the males, in 
Northumberland; and Sir Wm. Jardine remarks, respecting the 
south of Scotland, that young males are intermixed with the females. 
I have seen very large flocks in the north of Ireland, in which there 
were no males, and once during frost in the month of December, 
killed nine out of a flock, all of which proved to be females. 
Again, I have observed flocks of moderate size, consisting of a fair 
proportion of both sexes, and have always considered them to be 
our indigenous birds. The others, I am disposed to believe, from 
never having met with flocks of male birds, had migrated to 
this island from more northern latitudes, where they left their 
mates behind : — in the north of Europe, associations consisting 
of males only, have been observed during winter. 
In July, 1840, Mr. K. Davis, junr., of Clonmel, forwarded to 
Belfast, for my inspection, a bird killed in that neighbourhood, 
and sent to him as a white chaffinch. It had frequently been 
seen in company with chaffinches, and was shot along with 
them, in the preceding month of May. It is thus described in 
my notes : — “ This bird, which is singularly and beautifully 
marked, is of the full adult size of the chaffinch in every 
measurement. The prevailing colour of its plumage is pure white, 
but the head is tinted with yellow ; the entire back is of the 
richest canary-yellow; wing and tail-coverts likewise delicately 
tinted with that colour. A few of the blackish-gray and 
cinnamon-brown feathers of the ordinary chaffinch appear as 
follows — one or two on the head, some on the back, and 
some very few on the wings and tail, but altogether they are 
inconspicuous. The primaries and the long tail-feathers, as well 
as their shafts, are pure white. The plumage, on the whole, 
partakes as much of that of the canary as of the chaffinch."” 
Mr. J. V. Stewart mentions a white chaffinch being shot in his 
neighbourhood. In May, 1844, two young birds of this species 
connected together by a fleshy ligament, like that of the Siamese 
