THE LADIES 1 MAGAZINE OF GARDENING. 
373 
species. One naturalist, in describing this bird as the common one, 
remarks, u tlie country sparrows' are cleaner and handsomer than those in 
towns.” 
In addition to the above, the following birds may be mentioned as 
common in British gardens :— 
The Bullfinch (Loxia Pyrrhula) is well known as a cage-bird, and 
highly valued for its teachableness in learning short popular airs, which 
he will “ pipe” with great accuracy if carefully taught when young. In 
their wild state they are hedge birds, mostly breeding there, and living 
on hedge fruits. Here, however, their song is nothing, as they bear no 
part in the woodland choir; their only audible note is a soft chuck of 
self-complacency. In winter, they resort to shrubberies to feed on the 
fruit of the privet; and if these be scarce, they will enter the garden and 
orchard, and steal a livelihood among the fruit-trees, particularly plums, 
cherries, and currants, the flower-buds of which they destroy extensively 
if not driven off. 
The Greenfinch (L. clitoris) is another hedge bird, which is very 
similar in its mode of life to the bullfinch. But while it is not so mis¬ 
chievous in gardens, it is much more useful in fields, subsisting chiefly on 
the seeds of the charlock, rape, and field-radish: all weeds the farmers 
detest. 
The yellow-green plumage of the male bird is very beautiful, and he 
has a little ariette of five or six notes, each three or four times repeated 
during the song, which is far from disagreeable ; when the hen is sitting, 
the male utters his song on the wing, and with a very peculiar style of 
flight (quite different from his usual flight, which is by regular bounds, 
like other finches), appearing as if he were paralysed, or drunk with 
joy ; for his course is a perfect zig-zag, and, with outstretched quivering 
wings, sways right and left,, suiting his actions to his music, but in a very 
awkward manner. Greenfinches associate with other small birds in 
winter, and get their food mostly on stubble fields. 
The Yellow-hammer ( Emberiza citrinella ).—These birds are well 
known to every schoolboy; they are mostly a field-bird; as, except in 
winter, they seldom come near the gardens or dwellings of man ; but in the 
fields they are met with everywhere. The nests of these birds are easily 
found, not only from the old ones always hovering about the place, but 
also from the slovenly way the birds have of drawing towards the nest 
longer straws than they can manage to bend round into the circular form 
of the exterior, consequently these straws serve as a guide. Straw forms 
the outside of the nest, and it is neatly lined with hair within. The hen 
lays four or five eggs, the ground colour of which is white, but much 
VOL. i.——NO. xii. 3 c 
