CHAFFINCHES, SPARROWS, AND STARLING
FEEDING IN WINTER.
German workmen are great Chaffinch fanciers. One has been known to exchange a cow for a clever vocalist of this species, and another to live upon bread-and-water until he had saved the high price of a prime favourite.
It is, I must confess, always a saddening experience for me to hear this little songster’s notes ringing clear and sweet from the interior of a wee prison house tied up in a black cloth, and carried along some dismal street beneath the arm of a costermonger. However, it is only fair to add that these men are, as a rule, devoted to their pets, and treat them with the utmost kindness. A great authority upon the subject says that if well treated a Chaffinch will live in confinement for twenty years. It has also been asserted as a curious fact that if an adult male Chaffinch is caught before Whitsuntide he will sing in a cage, but if he should be made a prisoner after this date he will die of grief at being parted from his mate and young ones.
Chaffinches pair towards the end of February and throughout March, although flocks of “bachelors” may occasionally be seen as late as the first week in May, and commence building operations, as a rule, about the middle of April. They build deep, cup-shaped, and wonderfully neat little nests of moss, wool, lichens, and cobwebs, beautifully felted together and securely fixed in the forks of small trees in orchards, hedgerows, and woods. It is generally adorned on the outside with bits of green moss or grey lichens that will render it similar in appearance to its surroundings, and thus help it to escape detection.
YOUNG CHAFFINCHES.
The eggs number from four to six, but clutches of five are the general rule, and are pale greenish-blue in ground colour, clouded with faint reddish-brown and spotted and streaked with dull purplish-brown of various shades.
The female Chaffinch lacks the rich colouring of her mate, especially on the head and breast, and is a trifle smaller. The young are fed upon insects by both parent birds, and resemble their mother in appearance whilst wearing the first coat of feathers.
