British Birds in Their Haunts

by C. A. Johns

THE CHAFFINCH
FRINGILLA CǼLEBS

Forehead black; crown and nape greyish blue; back and scapulars chestnut, tinged with green; rump green; breast wine-red, fading towards the abdomen into white; wings black, with two white bands; coverts of the secondaries tipped with yellow; tail black, the two middle feathers ash-grey, the two outer on each side black, with a broad oblique white band. Female—head, back and scapulars, ash-brown, tinged with olive; lower parts greyish white; the transverse bands less distinct. Length six inches. Eggs greenish purple, streaked and spotted with purple-brown.

'Gai comme Pinson', as gay as a Chaffinch, is a familiar French proverb, which describes not only the character of the bird, but the peculiar temperament which in France is an essential part of gaiety. The Chaffinch is a smart, lively, active bird, always in a bustle, flitting here and there incessantly and staying long nowhere, always wearing a holiday look, so trim and spruce is he, and rattling through his song with wondrous volubility. It received the name cælebs, bachelor, from Linnæus, who observed that the flocks in winter are composed for the most part either exclusively of males or of females. Large flocks arrive on our east coast each year from the Continent, and others coming from the north spread themselves over the country to the southward. During the open weather of autumn and early winter, Chaffinches frequent stubble and ploughed fields, where they busily collect grain and the seeds of various weeds, and are not, I fear, very scrupulous whether they are engaged as gleaners of what is lost, or robbers of what is sown. In severe weather they resort to farmyards and homesteads, where, along with Sparrows, Buntings, and Greenfinches, they equally consider all they can find as provided for their own especial use. On the return of spring, they feed upon the young shoots, and for a few weeks show themselves great enemies to horticulture. Their visits to our flower-gardens, paid very early in the morning, are attested by scattered buds of polyanthuses, which they attack and pull to pieces as soon as they begin to push from between the leaves. In the kitchen-garden they are yet more mischievous, showing a strong inclination for all pungent seeds. Woe to the unthrifty gardener, who, while drilling in his mustard, or cress, or radishes, scatters a few seeds on the surface! The quick eye of some passing Chaffinch will surely detect them; so surely will the stray grains serve as a clue to the treasure concealed beneath, and so surely will a hungry band of companions rush to 'the diggings', and leave the luckless proprietor a poor tithe of his expected crop. Yet so large is the number of the seeds of weeds that the Chaffinch consumes, in the course of a year, more particularly of groundsel, chickweed, and buttercup, that he, without doubt, more than compensates for all his misdeeds; and as his summer food partially, and that of his young family exclusively, consists of caterpillars and other noxious insects, he is in reality among the gardener's best friends, who should be scared away at the seasons when his visits are not welcome, and encouraged at all other times. The Chaffinch, though a wary bird, does not stand greatly in fear of man; for if disturbed at a meal, he is generally satisfied with the protection afforded by the branches of the nearest tree, on which he hops about until the danger is past, uttering his simple but not unpleasing note, 'twink' or 'pink' or 'spink, spink, spink' as it is variously translated. To this cry it adds the syllable 'tweet', frequently repeated in an anxious tone and with a peculiar restlessness of manner, which always indicate that its nest is somewhere very near at hand, and by which indeed it is very often betrayed.

Its proper song commences very early in spring, and is continued until June or later. This must be the song which the poet had in view when he sang:—

Then as a little helpless innocent bird,

That has but one plain passage of few notes,

Will sing the simple passage o'er and o'er,

For all one April morning, till the ear

Wearies to hear it.—Tennyson.

It consists of from ten to twelve notes of the same tone, and about the same length, with the last but one elevated and accented, uttered rapidly at short intervals, and without the least variation.