The Chaffinch had long been known on the continent as a
bird-of-passage, but Linnaeus, informed by Leche, first published
the interesting information that in Sweden the hens
left the country in winter while the cocks did not, and hence
applied the trivial name of coelebs, or bachelor, to the species
in reference to these deserted males. The evidence of later
Swedish authorities does not altogether confirm this observation.
Prof. Nilsson, in 1817, said that hut few of the species
wintered in Sweden at all, hut that these few were not males
only. In 1885 he stated that the cocks both departed and
returned before the hens, while, in 1858, he declared besides
that the former have a winter-dress like that of the
hens, hut that each sex migrates separately. Sundevall
agrees to the last assertion, denying, however, and as regards
the adults unquestionably with truth, that the sexes are alike
at any season. It is probable that most of these discrepancies
are the result of observations made in different parts of
the country, but other instances are known of the temporary
separation of the sexes among birds. The testimony of the
best observers in the British Islands is at variance on this
point in the habits of the Chaffinch, and the diversity must
be attributed to difference of situation. More than a century
ago White of Selborne wrote that for many years he had
remarked the vast flocks of hen Chaffinches, with scarcely a
cock among them, that appeared in the fields towards Christmas,
and naturally correlated this fact with Linnaeus’s statement.
Selby, more than fifty years since, observed that in
Northumberland and the south of Scotland few females were
seen between November and the return of spring, and those
only in distinct societies, while immense flocks of males
remained during the winter. But, these accounts being
doubtless true as regards the localities to which they refer,
we have on the other hand men just as accurate—Montagu
in Devonshire and Knapp in Gloucestershire, for instance,
to say nothing of other more recent and not less excellent
observers denying that any such separation is apparent in
their respective neighbourhoods. We certainly receive, in
autumn or early winter, most likely from Norway and Sweden,
large flocks of immigrant Chaffinches, which seem composed
almost entirely of females, though young males that have
not yet put on the external distinction of their sex may be
among them. These strangers appear chiefly on the east
coast of England, from Yorkshire southward, but how far
they penetrate to the interior, and whether any great number
of them remain with us till spring, are questions hitherto
unanswered. That our home-bred birds should in some
degree make room for them is only to be expected, but to
what extent this movement takes place is also unknown.
In Shetland, on the contrary, the number of females is said
by Saxby to be very small as compared with that of the males,
but in the north of Ireland, according to Thompson, very
large flocks, among which there are none of the latter, occur
at times in winter, while again he has seen flocks of moderate
size comprising a fair proportion of both sexes, and these he
is disposed to believe were indigenous birds.
Their flight, like that of most Finches, is undulating, and
their food for the greater part of the year consists chiefly of
insects, varied, especially during the winter, with seeds,
some of which being those of very troublesome weeds, the
birds that consume them ought rather to be deemed useful
auxiliaries to the farmer and gardener, though they undoubtedly
pilfer from stacks, and may at times do not
inconsiderable damage by picking out the nevly-sown corn
or other seeds, when these are not buried deeply enough.
But the loss thus inflicted seems to be more than compensated
by the gain that results from their destruction of
noxious insects, as witness the opinions of observers so well
qualified as Mr. Hepburn (Zool. p. 298 and p. 578), M.
Florent Prevost and Mr. Cecil Smith (B. Somerset, p. 174),
and the enmity often, shewn towards this species is most
likely unjustifiable.
The Finches generally are remarkable for the compact,
soft and beautiful nests which most of them build, and the
Chaffinch is pre-eminently so. However different may be
the outward appearance of the neat and closely-woven
structure, the material upon which the whole tissue seems to