Part 16

The bullfinch is greatly persecuted by gardeners on account of the mischief he is supposed to do, for he has the habit of feeding on the flower-buds of fruit-trees in winter and spring. On the other hand, he is greatly esteemed as a cage-bird, and the bird-catchers are ever on the watch for it. But the effect in both cases is pretty much the same, since the hatred that slays and the love that makes captive are equally disastrous to the species. There is no doubt that it is diminishing in this country, and that it is now a rare bird in most districts. Fortunately, it has a wide distribution in Great Britain: in Ireland, where it is said to be rare, I have found it not uncommon, and tamer than in England. It may be increasing there, which would not be strange in a country where even the magpie is permitted to exist, and birds generally are regarded with kindlier feelings than in this country.

The bullfinch does not often go to the ground to feed; he gets most of his food on trees and bushes--insects, buds, fruit, and seeds of various kinds. He inhabits woods, plantations, and thickets, and is often seen in thick hedges and in the tangled vegetation growing by the side of streams. Where he is not persecuted he is a tame and rather sedentary bird, and will allow a person to approach within a dozen yards before leaving his perch. His call and alarm note is a low, piping, musical sound, very pleasant to hear. The male sings in the spring, and so, it is said, does the female; but his strain is short, and so feeble that it can be heard only at a distance of a few yards.

The nest is built during the last half of April in a holly or yew, or other dense, dark bush or tree, or in a thick hedge. It is unlike the nest of any other finch, being outwardly a platform-shaped structure made of interwoven twigs, with a cup-shaped nest in the centre, formed of fine rootlets, the rim of the cup projecting above the platform it is built on. The eggs are four to six, greenish blue in ground-colour, spotted and sometimes streaked with dark purplish brown, and blotched with pinkish brown.

Bullfinches pair for life, and at all seasons of the year male and female are seen together; if any young are reared, they usually remain in company with the parent birds during the autumn and winter months.

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Nearly allied to the common bullfinch are two beautiful birds which have a place in our list of species. One of these is the rosy bullfinch (_Carpodacus erythrinus_), of which two or three stragglers have been found in England; it breeds in Finland, and is found throughout the Russian Empire. The other is the pine grossbeak (_Pinicola_ (_enucleator_), also a rare straggler to Britain from the north of Europe.

Crossbill.

Loxia curvirostra.

Wing and tail feathers brown; all other parts green, yellow, orange, and tile-red, according to age and sex. Red is the colour of the adult male in a state of nature, and yellow in captivity. Length, six inches and a half.

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The crossbills differ from all other birds in the extraordinary form of the parrot-like bill. In other birds, whatever the shape of the bill may be, straight or curved, or broad and flat, or conical, or hooked, the two mandibles correspond, and fit when closed like box and lid. In this bird both mandibles have prolonged curved points, and cross each other, much as the two forefingers of our hands cross when the fingers are loosely linked together. A full description of this form of beak and its use as a seed-extractor, together with an admirably written history of the common crossbill, is contained in the second volume of Yarrell’s great work (fourth edition).

The crossbill is also remarkable on account of the changes of colour it undergoes and of the brightness of its colours. These are birds of the sombre pine-woods, inhabiting high latitudes; but in their various greens and reds and yellows they are like tanagers and other tropical families, and form an exception to the rule that birds of brilliant plumage are restricted to regions of brilliant sunlight.

No fewer than four species of this genus (Loxia) figure in the list of British birds; three of these may be dismissed in a few words:--

Parrot crossbill (_Loxia pittyopsittacus_) breeds in the pine-forests of Scandinavia and northern Russia, and is known in England as a rare straggler. It is scarcely distinct, specifically, from the common crossbill.

White-winged crossbill (_Loxia leucoptera_), a North American species, once obtained in England.

Two-barred crossbill (_Loxia bifasciata_) a Siberian species; a rare straggler to England and Ireland.

The fourth species (the common crossbill) has a better title to figure as a British species, and its winter visits to this country are much more frequent, although irregular; and it also breeds with us in some localities in Scotland, probably every year, and has also bred intermittingly in many districts in England, even so far south as Bournemouth. The reason of its irregularity in visiting our shores is that the crossbill is one of those species that do not go farther from home than they are compelled by severe cold and scarcity of food. Driven from home they become ‘gipsy migrants,’ and may be very abundant with us one year, and not one appear the following season, or for several seasons. At all times of the year the crossbill is gregarious in its habits. Throughout the summer it is seen in small parties; when the breeding season is over these begin to move about, accompanied by the young birds, and join with other parties, and as the season progresses the flock grows by process of accretion until it may number many hundreds. At this season they are remarkably tame, and will allow a person to approach within a few yards and admire their colours and various motions as they cling to and climb, parrot-like, about the twigs in search of seed and fruit. When flying they call to each other with a loud shrill note, and in late winter and spring both male and female utter a low warbling song.

The nest is placed in a pine-tree, at a distance from the ground of from five to forty feet; it is formed outwardly of twigs, roots, and dry grass; the inner part, of wool, hair, and feathers. Four or five eggs are laid, white or greenish white in ground-colour, spotted with reddish brown, with under-markings of pale brown.

Corn-Bunting.

Emberiza miliaria.

Upper parts yellowish brown with dusky spots; under parts yellowish white spotted and streaked with dusky. Length, seven and a half inches.

The present species is the largest of our five buntings, and is the most generally diffused throughout the British Islands. It is often called the common bunting, but is scarcely deserving of the name, as in most places it is less common than the yellow bunting. It is certainly more local than that bird, although in some localities, both in the south and north of England, it is more numerous than any other bird of its genus. Nor is its other name of corn-bunting more strictly accurate, for though it is a frequenter of corn-fields in spring and summer, it is equally partial to hay-meadows, commons, and other open places. Like the skylark, it loves an open sky and a wide horizon; but, not being able to soar, it seeks an elevation of some kind to perch on--a hedge-top, or the summit of a bush, or a tall weed in the middle of a field of corn, will serve it; but, best of all, it loves a telegraph-wire, where it sits on high above the world, in sunshine and wind, and without the slightest exertion is able to experience agreeable sensations like those of the kestrel, lark, or tern, when suspended motionless in mid-air. On a telegraph-wire it will sit contentedly by the hour, delivering its song at regular intervals.

The buntings--all those included in the genus Emberiza--differ from other finches in their more sedentary habits and heavier motions. The present species is the heaviest and most sedentary of all, and on this account, and also on account of its dull plumage, and because its voice is not melodious, it has been usually described in somewhat depreciatory terms. Yarrell speaks of its droning, harsh, unmusical song; and Warde Fowler thus describes it in his delightful book, ‘A Year with the Birds’: ‘Look at the common corn-bunting, as he sits on the wires or the hedge-top: he is lumpy, loose-feathered, spiritless, and flies off with his legs hanging down, and without a trace of agility or vivacity; he is a dull bird, and seems to know it. Even his voice is half-hearted, and reminds me often of an old man in our village who used to tell us that he had a wheezing in his pipes.’ This is a pretty description; but it makes the homely bunting a little too homely, and the critical remarks on its singing are not quite satisfactory: the song is not droning, and not half-hearted. Heard at intervals in the open, sunny fields and pasture-lands, it somehow has a pleasant effect. It is a peculiar sound, not easily describable. The song begins with two or three vigorous and musical chirps, then all at once the bird seems to lose himself as a musician, and throws out all that remains of his song in a burst of confused sound. In character it is somewhat like the sharp note of alarm, or excitement of some kind, often uttered in spring by the skylark as he flies low above the field, but is sharper and more prolonged. Robert Gray wrote: ‘It puts you in mind of the jingling of a chain or the sound of breaking glass.’ It is certainly like breaking glass. You can imitate it by tightly pressing a handful of polished pebbles together, which produce, as they slide over each other, a variety of sharp and scraping sounds. It is a peculiarity of the song that it is like several sounds emitted simultaneously, as of a note broken up into splinters, or issuing from a bundle of minute windpipes instead of out of one of larger size.

Of all the birds that remain with us throughout the year, the bunting is the latest to breed, the nest being usually built in May. It is placed among grass and herbage close to the ground, and formed of dry grass and fibrous roots, lined with horsehair and fine fibres. Four to six eggs are laid, dull purplish white or pale yellowish in ground-colour, blotched and streaked with dark brown, with some patches of a dull lavender hue.

The bunting feeds on seeds and grain and insects. In autumn it becomes gregarious, and visits the stubbles and rickyards, where it is seen associating with sparrows, greenfinches, and chaffinches.

Yellowhammer.

Emberiza citrinella.

Head, neck, breast, and under parts bright yellow, more or less streaked with dusky; flanks streaked with brownish red; upper parts reddish brown spotted with dusky. _Female_: the yellow parts less bright, and spotted with dull reddish brown. Length, six and a quarter inches.

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The yellowhammer, or yellow bunting, is one of the most generally diffused species in the British Islands, and, on account of its habit of always perching on the summit of a bush or other elevation, and of its bright yellow head and neck, which make it conspicuous at a distance, it is a familiar object to every person in the rural districts. It differs from the corn-bunting both in a brighter colouring and in a slimmer and more graceful figure. But it is a heavy bird nevertheless, of a sedentary disposition, and during the warm season spends a great portion of its time in sitting upright and motionless on its perch, uttering its song at regular intervals.

This species affects rough commons and waste lands in preference to fields, and where he is found you may hear his song at all times of the day, even during the sultriest hours; for although the yellowhammer remains with us throughout the year, and is able to resist the colds of winter, he is a great lover of heat. The song is very different from that of the species last described: it is composed of half a dozen or more short, reedy notes, all exactly alike, and shaken out, as it were, in a hurry, followed by a long, thin note, or by two notes, slightly melodious in character. It may be described as a trivial and monotonous song, but it is a summer sound which most people hear with pleasure, and the yellowhammer, or ‘little-bit-of-bread-and-no-c-h-e-e-s-e,’ as it is called in imitation of its note, is something of a favourite with country-people. The rustics have a story about the origin of the bread-and-no-cheese name, which they think very laughable; and one is certainly very much amused at the manner in which it is usually told. This is ponderous and slow, and strikes one as highly incongruous, the subject being only a childish legend about a little bird.

According to Yarrell, the Scotch peasants have some curious superstitions about the yellow yoldring, as they call it. To them its song sounds like the words ‘Deil, deil, deil tak ye,’ and the bird itself is supposed to be on very familiar terms with the evil being whose name it invokes so freely, and who supplies it on a May morning with a drop of his own blood with which to paint its curiously marked eggs.

About the middle of April the yellowhammer builds its nest, on or above the ground, among furze and bramble bushes, or at the roots of a hedge, or in a bank among grass and nettles. The nest is large but neatly made, outwardly of dry grass, stalks, roots, and moss, the inside being lined with fibres and horsehair. The eggs are four or five in number, purplish white in ground-colour, streaked and veined with deep reddish purple, with violet-grey under-markings.

The young males acquire the bright yellow head of the adult bird at the autumn moult.

Although this bird remains with us throughout the year, it has a partial migration. In autumn and winter it is seen in small flocks, often feeding in company with the common bunting and other finches. In winter its food consists principally of seeds; in summer it subsists largely, and feeds its young exclusively, on insects.

Cirl Bunting.

Emberiza cirlus.

Crown olive streaked with black; throat, neck, and band across the eye black; gorget and band above and below the eye bright yellow; breast olive-grey, bounded at the sides by chestnut; belly dull yellow; back brownish red with dusky spots. _Female_: the distinct patches of black and yellow wanting; the dusky spots on the back larger. Length, six and a half inches.

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This bird, in its dress of many colours--chestnut-brown, olive, black and white, and lemon-yellow--is the handsomest of the British buntings. It is an uncommon species, being restricted to the southern and western counties of England, and exceedingly local in its distribution. It is, moreover, of a shy disposition, and hides from sight in tall trees; consequently it is seldom seen, and is known to few persons. It is resident all the year. Its winter movements, if it has any, are not known. The curious fact about this bunting is that its breeding-places, which form small isolated areas, chiefly on or near the south-western coast, remain year after year unchanged. The birds do not nest outside of the old limits, nor do they form fresh colonies in other suitable places.

Hedgerow-elms, and other large trees growing near fields, are favourite resorts of the cirl bunting, and the male takes his stand to sing on a tree-top, just as the yellowhammer does on a furze-bush or hedge-top. His song comes nearest in character to that of the species just named, being composed of several rapidly uttered, short notes, only brighter and more vigorous; but the song is without the long, thin note with which the more common species ends his slight strain. In its nesting habits and in the colour of its eggs it is like the yellowhammer, but its young are fed almost wholly on young grasshoppers.

In summer the cirl bunting lives chiefly on insects, but in autumn and winter it is, like other finches, a seed-eater, and at this season unites in small flocks, and occasionally associates with birds of other species

Reed-Bunting.

Emberiza schœniclus.

Head, throat, and gorget black (in winter speckled with light brown); nape, sides of the neck, and a line extending to the base of the beak white; upper parts variegated with reddish brown and dusky; under parts white streaked with dusky on the flanks. _Female_: head reddish brown with dusky spots; the white on the neck less distinct; under parts reddish white, with dusky spots. Length, six inches.

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The reed-bunting, although by no means an uncommon bird, is not nearly so common as either the corn-bunting or yellowhammer. It is a bird of the waterside, and its spring and summer life is passed among the reeds and aquatic herbage and willows and alders growing on the margins of streams and marshes. It is widely distributed, and, where suitable localities exist, may be looked for with some confidence. In most districts it is known as the reed-sparrow, and in its colouring and general appearance it is undoubtedly more sparrow-like than the other buntings. From its black head, which is very conspicuous by contrast with the white collar, it is often called the black-headed bunting, a name which more properly belongs to a continental species to be noticed later on as an accidental visitor to this country. The male is a persistent singer in the spring months, and, perched near the top of a reed, or on the topmost branch of an alder tree, he will repeat at intervals his slight reedy song of four or five notes, the last somewhat prolonged. If disturbed, he will fly a little distance ahead and perch again; and this action he will repeat two or three times if followed up; then, doubling back, he will return to the first spot. He is a sprightlier bird than the other buntings. The slender reed-stems he perches on, which bend and sway beneath the slightest weight, have taught him easier and more graceful motions, although in that respect he cannot compare with the bearded tit.

The nest is made near the water, on or close to the ground, under a bush or bunch of rushes, and is composed of dry grass and leaves and stems of aquatic plants, and lined with fibrous roots and horsehair. The eggs are four or five in number, in ground-colour dull white or grey, spotted and streaked with purplish brown and dull grey.

The reed-bunting remains in this country all the year, but in severe weather leaves the wet, low ground, and is then seen among the flocks of mixed finches in fields and in the neighbourhood of farmhouses.

Snow-Bunting.

Plectrophanes nivalis.

Head, neck, portion of the wings and under parts white; upper parts black, tinged here and there with red. In winter the white of the head and the black on the back mixed with reddish brown. _Female_: the white on the head and upper parts mottled with dusky, and her colours not so pure. Length, six inches and three-quarters.

The snow-bunting, or snowflake, as it is also called, breeds regularly in some localities in the Highlands of Scotland, and may therefore be regarded as an indigenous species; but the birds breeding within British limits are only a few pairs, and the snow-bunting is best known as a winter visitor from more northern regions. They appear on our coasts in the month of October, sometimes in immense flocks, to pass the winter, for the most part in the neighbourhood of the sea, seeking their food in fields and on waste lands. Occasionally these flocks penetrate to the more inland districts. Being very pretty and lively little birds, they are great favourites in the places they visit; and their appearance is all the more welcome on account of the desolate aspect of nature in the districts where they are most abundant. Many ornithologists have written lovingly about the snow-bunting. Thus, Saxby says: ‘Seen against a dark hillside or a lowering sky, a flock of these birds presents an exceedingly beautiful appearance, and it may then be seen how aptly the term “snowflake” has been applied to the species. I am acquainted with no more pleasing combination of sight and sound than that afforded when a cloud of these birds, backed by a dark grey sky, descends, as it were, in a shower to the ground, to the music of their own sweet, tinkling notes.’

The fullest, and by far the most interesting, account ever given of the snow-bunting is by Seebohm. He says that in its habits it is the most arctic of the small birds, breeding as far north as latitude 82° 33´. Its appearance is thus described: ‘In sledging over the snow across the steppes of South-western Siberia from Ekaterranburg to Tomsk, a distance of about a thousand miles, the snow-bunting was the only bird we saw, except a few sparrows, jackdaws, and hooded crows near the villages. The snow-buntings were in small flocks, and many of them had almost lost their winter dress. It was a charming sight to watch them flitting before the sledge, as we disturbed them at their meals. Sometimes, in the sunshine, their white bodies were invisible against the white snow, and we could almost fancy that a flock of black butterflies was dancing before us. The flight of the snow-bunting is peculiar, and is somewhat like that of a butterfly, as if the bird altered its mind every few seconds as to which direction it wished to take.’

Of its song he says: ‘Whilst the female is busy with the duties of incubation the male sings freely, sometimes as he sits upon the top of a rock, but often flinging himself into the air like a shuttlecock, and then descending in a spiral curve, with wings and tail expanded, singing all the time. The song is a low and melodious warbling, not unlike that of the shore-lark.’

The nest is placed in crevices of rocks, and is made of dry grass, roots, and moss, lined with root-fibres, hair, wool, and feathers. Five or six, sometimes seven, eggs are laid, in ground-colour greyish white or pale blue, spotted and blotched with reddish brown, with under-markings of pale brown and pale grey.

The young are fed on the larvæ of gnats. In winter the snow-buntings feed on seeds of grass and weeds.

Besides the five buntings described, five more species figure in the list of British birds, and these may now be briefly noticed:--

Black-headed bunting (_Emberiza melanocephala_), inhabiting South-eastern Europe; a single specimen has been obtained in this country.

Ortolan bunting (_Emberiza hortulana_).--A summer visitor to Europe. Several specimens have been obtained in the British Islands, mostly in the south and east of England.

Rustic bunting (_Emberiza rustica_).--Breeds in North-eastern Europe and Northern Siberia. A rare straggler to Britain.

Little bunting (_Emberiza pusilla_), from North-eastern Europe and Siberia. Has been taken once in England.

Lapland bunting (_Calcarius lapponica_).--A circumpolar species breeding in the arctic regions. Occasionally straggles to this country.

Starling.

Sturnus vulgaris.

Black with purple and green reflections, the upper feathers tipped with pale buff; under tail-coverts edged with white; beak yellow; feet flesh-colour tinged with brown. _Female_: spotted below as well as above. _Young_: uniform ash-brown, unspotted. Length, eight and a half inches.

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