Identifier: birdsofbritain00bonh (find matches)
Title: Birds of Britain
Year: 1907 (1900s)
Authors: Bonhote, J. Lewis (John Lewis), 1875-1922 Dresser, Henry Eeles, 1838-1915
Subjects: Birds -- Great Britain
Publisher: London, A. and C. Black
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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y the regurgitation of half-digestedfood from the crops of their parents, and at this time ofyear a large number of insects are consumed. Two broodsare often raised during the season, and then the family partywanders out into the open fields to seek their food, returningat night to the gardens, till they get gradually farther andfarther from home and no longer visit their summer haunttill the following spring. This bird is so well and generally known that no de-tailed description is necessary. The female may be dis-tinguished by her more slender bill and brownish shoulders,(lesser wing coverts). In the adult male the shoulders arejet black, but young males sometimes show traces of brown. The young, known as grey pates, are greyish brown onthe upper parts and lack the characteristic markings on thehead. The true Eussian Goldfinches are rather larger in sizeand have a nearly white rump. The true Siberian Gold- ii8 GOLDFINCH Card?ielis elegans Male (left), f^fmale (centre). Young (right)
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Birds of Britain increased so as to be beyond all limits ? Wherever mansettles, there, sooner or later, will he make his appearance,sitting on the roof or in the shrubbery, and uttering,especially in the mornings, his monotonous and impertinentchirp. In spring he pulls up the crocuses, later he turnshis attention to young and succulent plants just forcingtheir way above the ground, or if a new-sown lawn be theobject of ones solicitude he will make it his business to seethat the hoped-for grass-plot remains a barren tableland. Assummer comes on, the drain-pipes are blocked by his un-tidy nest—a mere heap of straw and hay warmly lined withfeathers. If a tree or the ivy against the house be chosenfor a site, the nest is better made, and is in fact a substantialdome-built structure with the entrance at the side, but itsposition is readily betrayed by long untidy bits of strawleft trailing outside. The eggs are five or six in numberand bluish white spotted and blotched with ash brown. By

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