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The thrushes, chaffinch, chiff-chaff, and greenfinch were occasionally heard; outside the wood the buntings, chats, and the skylark were few and far between.
A hundred times the mowing-grass has grown up around it, the birds have built their nests, the butterflies fluttered by, and the acorns dropped from the oaks. It is a long, long time, counted by artificial hours or by the seasons, but it is longer still in another way. The greenfinch in the hawthorn yonder has been there since I came out, and all the time has been happily talking to his love.
"Indeed I only want to go home, for if I stay so long away Snowflake will begin crying again, and grandmother is waiting for me, and Greenfinch will get beaten, because I am not there to give Peter any cheese, and I can never see how the sun says good-night to the mountains; and if the great bird were to fly over Frankfurt he would croak louder than ever about people huddling all together and teaching each other bad things, and not going to live up on the rocks, where it is so much better."
They too succumb, but, so it seems to me, less persistently. Can it be that my hypnotic tricks are less efficacious with small birds than with large ones? To judge by the Pigeon, this may well be so. He yields to my art only to the extent of two minutes' sleep. A still smaller bird, a Greenfinch, is even more refractory: all that I obtain from him is a few seconds' drowsiness.
Only Greenfinch, the slender nimble little goat, was brave enough to face him, and would make a rush at him, three or four times in succession, with such agility and dexterity, that the great Turk often stood still quite astounded not venturing to attack her again, for Greenfinch was fronting him, prepared for more warlike action, and her horns were sharp.
Peter, now he had his goat in safety, lifted his stick in order to give her a good beating as punishment, and Greenfinch seeing what was coming shrank back in fear. But Heidi cried out, "No, no, Peter, you must not strike her; see how frightened she is!" "She deserves it," growled Peter, and again lifted his stick.
Weir, J. Jenner, on the nightingale and blackcap; on the relative sexual maturity of male birds; on female pigeons deserting a feeble mate; on three starlings frequenting the same nest; on the proportion of the sexes in Machetes pugnax and other birds; on the coloration of the Triphaenae; on the rejection of certain caterpillars by birds; on sexual differences of the beak in the goldfinch; on a piping bullfinch; on the object of the nightingale's song; on song-birds; on the pugnacity of male fine-plumaged birds; on the courtship of birds; on the finding of new mates by Peregrine falcons and Kestrels; on the bullfinch and starling; on the cause of birds remaining unpaired; on starlings and parrots living in triplets; on recognition of colour by birds; on hybrid birds; on the selection of a greenfinch by a female canary; on a case of rivalry of female bullfinches; on the maturity of the golden pheasant.
Jenner Weir turned a female canary into his aviary, where there were male linnets, goldfinches, siskins, greenfinches, chaffinches, and other birds, in order to see which she would choose; but there never was any doubt, and the greenfinch carried the day. They paired and produced hybrid offspring.
Later he will learn that the Sparrow is not the Bullfinch, that the Linnet is not the Greenfinch; he will particularize and to a greater degree each day, as his faculty of observation becomes more fully trained. In the beginning he saw nothing but resemblances; he now sees differences, but still not plainly enough to avoid incongruous comparisons.
Bewick says linnets are so named from their fondness for linseed, and I think most of the finches like it. The greenfinch is soon attracted by hemp seed, and all the smaller birds by canary seed. I hope this paper may induce many kind hands to minister to the needs of our feathered friends during the winter months.
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