Part 41

Upper parts dark brown, the feathers edged with light brown; rump (of the male) tinged with red; throat tawny brown; breast and belly dull white, streaked on the flanks with dark brown; beak yellow; feet dark brown. Length, five and a quarter inches.

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The twite, or mountain-linnet, is a bird of the mountain and moorland, and of the north, being most abundant in the Hebrides; but it also breeds in hilly districts throughout Scotland, and in suitable localities in the northern and midland counties. In the south it is a winter visitor, and is then found associating with the linnet, which it very closely resembles in flight, habits, and appearance; when near it may be distinguished by its shriller voice, and by its longer tail, which makes it look slimmer. In its song, too, the twite resembles the linnet, and, like that bird, occasionally sings on the wing; but its music is wanting in the finer sounds--just as its plumage is without the lovely carmine tint--of the other species.

The nest is placed in a bunch of heather, or beneath it, on the ground, and sometimes in a furze-bush. It is made of dry grass, moss, and wool, lined with hair and fur. The eggs are five or six in number, and are like the linnet’s in colour.

In autumn the twites unite in large flocks, and visit the stubbles and ploughed lands.

Bullfinch.

Pyrrhula europæa

Crown, throat, region round the beak, wings, and tail lustrous purple-black; upper part of the back bluish ash; ear-coverts, sides of the neck, breast, and belly red; lower tail-coverts dull white; a broad buff and grey band across the wing. Length, six and a quarter inches.

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The bullfinch stands out among British finches with a strange distinctness. He is gaily coloured, and the arrangement of colours is a striking one--glossy black, blue-grey, and pure white above, and a fine red beneath. This is described in the books as ‘brickred’; and there is no doubt that, among the thousand and more shades of the less vivid red seen in bricks taken fresh from the kiln, the exact tint of the bullfinch might be matched. In the same way you could match the most delicate floral red--that which we see in the spikes of the red horse-chestnut, and the almond blossom, and the briar rose. The earthy, uniform red of weathered bricks is not the colour of our bird. The beauty of such a tint as that of the bullfinch can be best appreciated where, indeed, it is most commonly seen, amidst the verdure of clustering leaves; for greens and reds, pleasing in themselves, ever make the most agreeable contrasts among colours.

In its figure, too, this bird is very singular among the finches: his curiously arched beak gives him the look of a diminutive hawk in a gay plumage.

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.