British Birds in Their Haunts

by C. A. Johns

THE BULLFINCH
PÝRRHULA EUROPÆA

Crown, throat, plumage round the bill, wings and tail lustrous purple-black; upper part of the back bluish ash; cheeks, neck, breast and flanks red (in the female reddish brown); rump and abdomen pure white; a broad buff and grey band across the wings. Length six and a quarter inches. Eggs light greenish blue, speckled and streaked with light red and dark purple.

'The Bullfinch', said Macgillivray, usually so accurate an observer, 'is not very common anywhere.' From this last remark I infer that the author in question was never either proprietor or occupant of a fruit-garden in a wooded district, or he would have reported very differently of the frequency of the Bullfinch. During winter the food of these birds consists exclusively of berries of various kinds and seeds, especially of such weeds as thistle, rag-wort, duckweed, plantains, etc., either picked up from the ground or gathered from herbs and shrubs. In spring, unfortunately for the gardener, their taste alters, and nothing will satisfy them but the blossom-buds of fruit-trees, especially those which are cultivated. They attack, indeed, the buds of the sloe and hawthorn as well; but of these, being valueless, no one takes note. Still keeping together in small family parties, all uninvited, they pay most unwelcome visits to gooseberries, plums, and cherries, and, if undisturbed, continue to haunt the same trees until all hope of a crop is destroyed. Gooseberry-bushes are left denuded of flower-buds, which have been deliberately picked off and crushed between their strong mandibles, while the leaf-buds, situated principally at the extremities of the branches, are neglected. Plum and cherry trees are treated in like manner, the ground being strewed with the bud-scales and rudiments of flowers. Some persons endeavour to deter them by whitewashing the trees, and are said to find this plan effectual. Others wind a straw rope round the gooseberry-bushes, so disguising their natural appearance. This plan I found perfectly successful one year, but the next it was entirely without effect. A new one which I have adopted this year is somewhat more complex. In addition to the straw bands, I have stretched long strings, with feathers attached here and there, so as to resemble the tail of a paper kite; and, by way of offering them an inducement to stay away, I have sprinkled peas on the ground in an adjoining lane, in the hope that they will partially, at least, satisfy their hunger on these. A bird with so strong a beak as that of the Bullfinch is evidently designed to crush its food, not to swallow it whole; accordingly, I find my peas disappearing, but the parchment-like rind is left on the ground, a substance too indigestible even for the gizzard of a Bullfinch. This bird has, however, justly many friends, who assert that the buds he attacks are infested with concealed insects, and that the tree he strips one season will be heavily laden the following year. When not occupied in disbudding fruit-trees, Bullfinches are most frequently observed in tall and thick hedges, either in small flocks as described above, or in pairs. They are rarely met with singly, and yet less frequently associated with birds of another species. Occasionally a pair may be seen feeding with Sparrows and Chaffinches in the farmyard; but this society seems one of accident rather than of choice. When disturbed in a hedge they are singularly methodical in their movements: first one flies out, bounds, as it were through the air in a direction away from the spectator, perches on a twig in the thick part of the hedge, and is followed by the rest of the party in single file. When the passenger has approached within what the bird considers a safe distance, the same manœuvre is repeated, each bird following, with dipping flight, the line marked out by its predecessor.

PINE GROSBEAK
PÝRRHULA ENUCLEATOR

Head and upper parts of the neck reddish orange, streaked on the back with dusky; wings and tail black, the former with two white bars, the primaries and tail-feathers edged with orange, the secondaries with white under parts orange-yellow. Length seven and a quarter inches. Eggs white.

A large and handsome bird, inhabiting the Arctic regions during the summer months, and in winter descending a few degrees to the south in both hemispheres. It is of very rare occurrence in the pine-forests of Scotland, and a still more unfrequent visitor to England. The Pine Grosbeak, or Pine Bullfinch, is a bird of sociable habits, and an agreeable songster.

THE CROSSBILL
LOXIA CURVIRÓSTRA.

Bill equalling in length the middle toe, point of the lower mandible extending beyond the ridge of the upper mandible; plumage variegated, according to age and sex, with green, yellow, orange, and brick-red. Length six and a half inches. Eggs bluish white, speckled with red-brown.

The beak of this bird was pronounced by Buffon 'an error and defect of Nature, and a useless deformity'. A less dogmatic, but more trustworthy authority, our countryman, Yarrell, is of a different opinion. 'During a series of observations', he says, 'on the habits and structure of British birds, I have never met with a more interesting or more beautiful example of the adaptation of means to an end, than is to be found in the beak, the tongue, and their muscles, in the Crossbill.' No one can read the chapter of British Birds devoted to the Crossbill (in which the accomplished author has displayed even more than his usual amount of research and accurate observation) without giving a ready assent to the propriety of the latter opinion. Unfortunately the bird is not of common occurrence in this country, or there are few who would not make an effort to watch it in its haunts, and endeavour to verify, by the evidence of their own eyes, the interesting details which have been recorded of its habits. I have never myself succeeded in catching a sight of a living specimen, and am therefore reduced to the necessity of quoting the descriptions of others. Family parties of this species visit—1907—a small wood of pine trees in the valley of the Kennet near Theale some winters, as well as other scattered pine-forest lands in the southern counties, and across the Solway and northward it nests in suitable districts.