CHAFFINCH. 
53 
other granivorous birds in the stubble lands as long as the 
weather continues mild and the ground free from snow; 
resorting, upon the approach of winter, to farm-yards and 
other places of refuge and supply. He adds that it has been 
noticed by several authors that the arrival of the males, in 
a number of our summer visitants, precedes that of the females 
by many days; a fact from which we might infer that in 
such species a similar separation exists between the males and 
the females before their migration. When at school, at 
Bromsgrove, in Worcestershire, I noticed this fact, I mean 
as regards the Chaffinch, myself. There the hen birds used 
to be met with in large flocks in the winter months, and 
also, I am nearly certain, the male birds likewise in flocks 
by themselves. I am inclined to think that this is most the 
case in severe winters. 
The Rev. Gilbert White, in his ‘Natural History of Sel- 
borne,’ Hampshire, remarked the same thing, the large flocks 
to be met with in hard weather being almost, but not quite, 
exclusively composed of females. Linnaeus, in his ‘Fauna of 
Sweden,’ records his observation of the like circumstance there, 
and says that the female Chaffinches migrate from that 
country in the winter, but that the males do not. Hence 
the assignment by him to this species of its specific Latin 
name, equivalent to our Bachelor. 
With the advance of spring, however, our bird becomes 
‘Caelebs in search of a wife;’ nor does he seek in vain, for in 
every lane in the country that is lined with trees, a ‘happy 
pair’ are to be seen; the absurdities of Malthus and Miss 
Martineau—to whom I wish no worse than that she may 
remain to the end of her days in ‘Single Blessedness’— 
weighing not a feather in the scale with them against the 
Divine Edict which Nature publishes to them, ‘Encrease and 
multiply.’ With regard, however, to the observations of 
Linnaeus, Professor Nillson, of Sweden, says that although but 
few Chaffinches remain in that* country during winter, they 
are not males only. But, doubtless, the fact as stated by 
the former great author, must still remain, at all events to 
some degree, the same as when he recorded it, and this would 
partially account for the enlarged numbers of females to be 
seen with us in winter in the flocks already spoken of. 
In autumn these birds become gregarious, frequenting 
hedge-rows and stubble fields, where they unite with com¬ 
panions of various other species, whose similar pursuits lead 
