A HISTORY OF WORCESTERSHIRE species is local on account of the requirements of a suitable place for a nest, it may really be less abundant than it appears to be. Never- theless, where there are good breeding-places its numbers are as great as formerly. 53. Greenfinch. Llgurinus chloris (Linn.). The greenfinch was at one time more abun- dant than it is now, and might be seen in considerable flocks in rickyards in the winter, where it fed chiefly on the corns of barley ; and I have observed quite large flights cling- ing to the sides of ricks of that grain. There are few of our small birds which have bills strong enough to break up a barleycorn, but the greenfinch can do it quite easily. The husk containing the seeds of the mangel- wurzel, when ripe, is exceedingly rough and hard, and is proof against the attacks of nearly all our seed-eating birds ; but the greenfinch can crush it, and will certainly do so if not kept off when the seeds are ripening. 54. Hawfinch. Coccothraustes vulgaris, Pallas. This is one of the very few birds which have become more abundant within the last twenty or thirty years. Hastings, writing in 1834, reported it as infrequent in the county. Lees speaks of it as a rare bird around Mal- vern, but sometimes breeds. Some time in the ' thirties ' a hawfinch was shot in the valley of the Avon, which was thought to be so re- markable a bird that a great many people visited the house where it was to examine it. Of late years it has become comparatively common in the county, where it breeds annu- ally. 55- Goldfinch. CardueUs elegam, Stephens. Mr. Aplin, in his work on the Birds of Oxfordshire, mentions two distinct varieties of the goldfinch ; the one large, light in colour and brilliant, which is a summer mi- grant, and the other small, dark-coloured and resident. Both varieties occur in Worcester- shire, but the larger and brighter one certainly remains with us until at least mid-winter, and I have specimens which were shot in the alder trees of the Avon in the middle of December, 1896. We have a fair number of goldfinches breeding with us, due in some measure to the preference shown to the pear tree as a nesting- place, and the pear is essentially a Worcester- shire tree. When our pear trees have lost their leaves the nests of the goldfinch may be seen on the very ends of the branches, looking like small round balls. The seeds of all kinds of thistles, as well as of the teazel and bur- dock, afford food for the goldfinch, and in mid-winter the alder and ash are visited and the seeds eaten, but it is only the germ of the latter which is consumed. 56. Siskin. Carduelis spinus (Linn.). The siskin is an irregular winter visitor, occasionally appearing in considerable num- bers, though whole seasons may pass and none or only a few stragglers be seen. The Rev. F. O. Morris, in his work on British Birds, has the following : ' When at school at Bromsgrove, in Worcestershire, I and my schoolfellows used to shoot several of these birds out of pretty considerable flocks, which used occasionally to frequent the gardens near the town, and more generally the alder trees by the side of Charford brook.' He also speaks of their being at Stoke Prior, a little lower down the same stream, in 1852. The alder trees by the side of our streams are the chief resorts of the siskin in the years when it visits us, which was the case in the winter of 1889- 90. Their stay, however, was very brief; they were here to-day and gone to-morrow. 57. House-Sparrow. Passer domesticus (Linn.). The sparrow it need hardly be said is only too abundant, and is a scourge to other birds of his own size. 58. Tree-Sparrow. Passer montanus (Linn.). This species is very much less abundant than the house-sparrow, and though frequent- ing open fields and small enclosures is very seldom seen near houses. The nest is often placed in a hole of a pollard withy or apple tree, or in the thatch of a cattle shed, but is always outside, and seldom, if ever, inside the building. 59. Chaffinch. Fringilla ccelehs, Linn. The chaffinch is a common and well-known bird, though by no means a favourite with the growers of radishes. The nest, the beauty of which is unrivalled, is usually placed in the fork of a bush or tree, but occasionally a de- parture from the general habit has been noticed. A nest was seen by the writer in a recess or niche in the upright bole of an aged and lichen-covered pear tree, and so much resembled the bark of the tree that had not the bird flown out it would have escaped notice. Another was placed in the crooked and tangled roots of an asli tree in the vertical bank of a brook, only a foot above the water, and a third was in a still more unlikely place, namely in the side of a wheat rick in a rickyard. The last-named one was described by a labourer who found it as being ' like a ball of worsted ' stuck in the side of the rick. He might have said of grey worsted, for that was what it considerably resembled when seen 152
