2 
and flourish without it, and even in captivity they will exist in health and 
vigour for a term of ten to fifteen years on nothing but rape and canary 
seed. The birds range from place to place in search of their favorite food, 
but they do not go abroad to seek it; in their wanderings they keep to 
lines and observe limits : they go from England only when the migratory 
instinct compels them, and when the time comes round return again to 
their ancestral breeding places. If they are disappearing, it is because the 
goldfinch is a favorite cage bird, and is most sought after by the bird- 
catcher, on account of the better price it commands in the market. 
These few general remarks are intended to serve as an introduction 
to the subject, and are here followed by a valuable contribution from the 
pen of Mr. William Litton Woodroffe—a paper originally printed in the 
Pall Mall Gazette of October 27th, 1893. Later on there will be more to 
say on the subject; and in the meantime any fresh facts and suggestions 
that Branch Secretaries, Associates, and other friends of the Society may 
care to send in will be very welcome. jq Hudson 
LINNETS, LARKS AND GOLDFINCHES. 
All along the south coast and all along the east coast, but especially 
along the seaboard of the south-eastern counties, larks, linnets and gold¬ 
finches, the best-known of our songsters, are collecting in flocks and 
making for their winter quarters. It is the flight season with them, as it 
is with a good many others, and they cross the Channel just before the 
wintry weather comes on, as punctually as if they had got their warning 
from some Harley Street doctor. As a rule, they are not much noticed. 
Swallows collecting on the ridge tile of a country church, or covering the 
telegraph wires by the country railway station, are prominent enough. 
We speak of them as summer friends, and we know summer is over when 
they have fled. Their departure is a date. The linnets are less imposing. 
They fly low by the stubble fields in coveys of eight or ten, followed by 
other flocks, and their twittering cry is familiar in the sharp, clear autumnal 
afternoons. 
But at this season the birdcatcher is on the look out for his prey, 
and the flight season is to him very much what the First of September 
or the Second of October is to more serious sportsmen. As a rule, he 
is not a birdcatcher by profession, though, seen with his equipment, his 
nets, his poles, his cages, he looks bred to the work. Men who have to do 
with birds somehow get a bird-like look. This snarer is as often as not 
the village barber, or a small shoemaker in some back street in Brighton 
or Hastings, or a stableman at Littlehampton; but, whatever his trade, he 
bears on his face a certain farouche look that tells of his connection with 
feather or with fur. His stock-in-trade is small and of small value, his 
earnings are not contemptible, but his work is hard enough, You can see 
him returning from it just before noon, and he has been on his hunting- 
ground since before .dawn. For in birdcatching it is found that a good 
position is everything. There are certain fields skirting the sea, by Fair- 
light or Rottingdean, where year after year the flight of birds bent for the 
