THE HAWFINCH.
The Hawfinch.
(Coccothraustes vulgaris.)
This is not a true migrant, for it is only in severe winters that it seeks a warmer climate. In autumn it comes from the hills, down into the plain, to the neighbourhood of human habitations, where it leads a restless life. It is timid, and easily startled; while flying it utters its shrill cry “seu, seu, seu.” The striking bulk of its beak indicates the strength it has to use in obtaining its food; and it is so, for the kernels of the hardest cherry stones are its favourite dainty.
It flies in small flocks, and when these light on a cherry tree, they are quite quiet, not a sound is heard, except the cracking of the hard shells by the strong bills, which are specially formed for the work. The cherry stone lies in the lower mandible, the upper one being ribbed and so perfectly adapted for cracking the stone. This bird breaks with ease a fruit stone, which a full-grown man can only crush with the heavy pressure of his boot heel. Towards spring, when there are no more fruit stones to be found, it attacks and destroys the young leaf buds.
This bird is not very commonly found in Hungary.
The number of Hawfinches has been steadily increasing in England of late years. This is probably due to Bird Protection, which is so much more enforced than it used to be. The young are fed chiefly on caterpillars, but unfortunately they soon take to eating peas, which brings them into bad repute with gardeners, and numbers of young birds are shot and buried in gardens where peas are grown. It is pleasant, on the other hand, to watch them amongst the wild plums and sloes and crab-trees in one of our old hedgerows, but is not an easy matter as they are so suspicious. In districts where many peas are grown for the market, these birds are a perfect plague. In Germany this bird is called Kernbeisser (kernel biter) because of the ease with which it cracks cherry stones with its powerful bill. With us it eats the seeds of the horn-beam and other trees, beechmast, haws, etc.