BULLFINCH. 
59 
Provincial. — Hoop. Nope. Pope. Red-hoop. Tony-hoop. 
Alp. Nope. 
This species is so well known as to make it unnecessary to be very 
particular in description. 
The bill is black, short, and thick ; irides dusky ; the crown of the 
head is black ; upper part of the neck and back fine cinereous grey ; 
cheeks, breast, and belly, bright crimson ; vent white ; coverts of the 
wings crossed with a white line just above the quill-feathers, which last 
are dusky ; rump white ; tail black. 
The female is very unlike the male in plumage, except in the crown 
of the head, which is black ; the whole bird besides is of a dirty brown ; 
rump white. 
It makes a nest the latter end of April or beginning of May, prefer- 
ring the thickest places for that purpose, most frequently in a black or 
white-thorn bush, either in woods or hedges. The nest is composed of 
small dry twigs, lined with fibrous roots. 
*I am at a loss to conceive on what authority M. Montbeillard de- 
scribes this nest as consisting of moss, lined with soft materials, with an 
opening said to be the least exposed to the prevailing wind ; and no less 
why M. Temminck says “ it builds in the most elevated and least ac- 
cessible forks of trees.”! I have seen a considerable number of the 
nests and never found any of these circumstances hold good. I have 
sometimes found them built in low thick bushes ; but most commonly 
on the flat branch of a spruce pine or silver fir. In the former case, the 
Bullfinch lays a foundation of birch twigs, placed crossways, in the forks 
of the branches, paying more attention to the security of the fabric than 
to its neatness. But when she gets into a spruce pine, finding that the 
flat branch itself is an excellent foundation, she uses a much smaller 
number of sticks. When she has reared a ground-work to her mind, 
she proceeds to collect a quantity of flexible fibrous roots which she in- 
tertwines into a sort of basket work rather loose, and only sufficient to 
hold the eggs and young from rolling down. The inside is wholly 
lined with fine roots, without any hair or feathers. Dr. Latham says 
she rarely uses moss.^ I should be inclined, from my own observa- 
tion, to say never ; nor have I ever found this nest in high and inac- 
cessible branches ; seldom so high as five or six feet from the ground, as 
M. Montbeillard says, but usually about four, and sometimes even 
lower.^ Sepp’s figure represents it as built in a cleft, but so loose 
! Man. d’Orn. i. p. 340. ^ Gen. Hist. vii. p. 380, 
^ Architecture of Birds, p. 201. 
