Finch

“ The gross, massive beak of the finch, though not good to look upon, is of great value as a seed-husking machine. No one can have watched a canary for five minutes without observing the address with which each little seed is picked up, cracked, and the husk rejected by the joint action of tongue and mandibles.
Sixty-four species of finch occur within the limits of the Indian Empire. Of these fifteen species are known as rose-finches. ”

“ Now and again a finch, a starling, or a sparrow would come meaning to drink—athirst from the meadow or the cornfield—and start and almost entangle their wings in the bushes, so completely astonished that any one should be there. ”

“ Finch The coming of Alayne had made a deep and rather overwhelming impression on young Finch. She was unlike any one he had ever met; she filled his mind with curiosity and tremulous admiration; he could not put the thought of her aside on that first night. Her face was between him and the dry pages over which he pored. He was driven to rise once in the middle of wrestling with a problem in algebra and creep half-way down the stairs, just to watch her for a few minutes through the open door of the drawing-room, where the family sat at bridge and backgammon. ”

“ Amongst the clumps of reeds we observed the hanging nests of sedge-warblers, of the bright red, black-spotted fire-finch, and of the handsome longtailed king-finch (Vidua Capensis) , one of the largest of the finch tribe. In winter the king-finch assumes a brownish hue, but in the summer its plumage is a rich velvet-black, to which an orange spot on each shoulder stands out in brilliant contrast. The change of plumage is not the only transformation with which Nature during its period of luxuriance endues this charming bird ”

“ Finch's approval: I am, so to speak, backed by Mr. Finch.'—Mrs. Finch! I wish you to understand the object of the bath. Hold your tongue. The object is to produce a gentle action on your skin. One of the women is to keep her eye on your forehead. The instant she perceives an appearance of moisture, she is to run for me.—Oscar! you will let me know at what decision they arrive, up-stairs in my daughter's room. ”

“ It is not often you catch a bird in the singing mood in the winter; yet on December 19, a purple finch was piping quite a vivacious tune in the woods. Of course, he was not in his best voice, but his performance was good enough to entitle it to the name of bird music. The finches, by the way, are strong flyers. ”

“ Finch, for all your kindness to my brother. Madame Pratolungo, I presume? Permit me to shake hands. It is needless to say, I have heard of your illustrious husband. Aha! here's a baby. Yours, Mrs. Finch? Girl or boy, ma'am? A fine child—if a bachelor may be allowed to pronounce an opinion. Tweet—tweet—tweet!"
He chirruped to the baby, as if he had been a family man, and snapped his fingers gaily. Poor Oscar's blue face turned in silent triumph towards me. "What did I tell you?" his look asked. "Did I not say Nugent fascinated everybody at first sight?" Most true. An irresistible man. ”

“ I want things at wrong times—breakfast in the middle of the night; dinner at four in the morning. I want something now!" Mr. Finch stopped, horror-struck at his condition; pondering with his eyebrows fiercely knit, and his hand pressed convulsively on the lower buttons of his rusty black waistcoat. Mrs. Finch's watery blue eyes looked across the room at me, in a moist melancholy of conjugal distress. The rector, suddenly enlightened after his consultation with his stomach, strutted to the door, flung it wide open, and called down the kitchen stairs with a voice of thunder, "Poach me an egg!" ”

“ I ventured to stop him: mentioning that Lucilla's letter had informed me of his daughter's sudden departure for her aunt's house. Mr. Finch waved away my answer with his hand, as something too infinitely unimportant to be worthy of a moment's notice.
"Yes! yes! yes!" he said. "You have a superficial acquaintance with the facts. But you are far from being aware of what my daughter's sudden removal of herself from my roof really means. Now don't be frightened, Madame Pratolungo! and don't excite Mrs. Finch! ”

“ Can anything be more absurd? What are mothers about? Why don't they think for themselves? Take my advice—short petticoats, Mrs. Finch. Liberty, glorious liberty, for my young friend's legs! Room, heaps of room, for that infant martyr's toes!"
Mrs. Finch listened helplessly—lifted the baby's long petticoats, and looked at them—stared piteously at Nugent Dubourg—opened her lips to speak—and, thinking better of it, turned her watery eyes on her husband, appealing to him to take the matter up. Mr. Finch made another attempt to assert his dignity—a ponderously satirical attempt, this time. ”

“ When his proposal had been accepted, the host went to attend to the necessary preparations, and Botho and Lena were left once more to enjoy to the full the happiness of being quietly alone together. A finch whose nest was in a low bush near by was swinging on a drooping twig of the elm, the swallows were darting here and there, and finally came a black hen followed by a whole brood of ducklings, passed the veranda, and strutted pompously out on a little wooden pier that was built far out over the water. ”

“ The indigo-bird, purple finch, horse-finch, American goldfinch, pine-finch, grass-finch and rosy finch are among the best-known species in this country. Canaries and sparrows are also classed as finches. ”

“ Those that I have had have been quiet and amiable, and among the most good-natured and obliging of my birds. The first time I heard them sing I was enraptured. Their song was so sweet, so modest, so melodious. One finch I possessed amused me greatly. He fell into a kind of slavery to a siskin, who followed him and worried him until he at last consented to help her make a nest, in which there were some fine young ones that might have turned out promising hybrids if some wicked, larger bird had not one day killed the neat, determined little mother. I found her headless body beside her nest. ”

“ I have met with a great many audacious people in my time. But the audacity of Reverend Finch—persisting to our faces in the assumption that he had been the first to discover our neighbor, and that Lucilla and I were perfectly incapable of understanding and appreciating Oscar, unassisted by him—was entirely without a parallel in my experience. ”

“ Although there is so little to say about the bull-finch in his natural state—excepting that he is a handsome bird, with bright black eyes, a sort of rich black hood on his head; his back, ash-grey; his breast and underparts, red; wings and tail, black, with the upper tail-coverts white—yet when he has gone through his musical education, he is not only one of the most accomplished of song-birds, but one of the most loving and faithfully attached little creatures that can come under human care. These trained birds are known as piping bull-finches. ”

“ Mrs. Finch, observing our astonishment, timidly enlightened us. The maternal eye had seen Jicks slip out cunningly at Herr Grosse's heels. The child's object was plain enough. While there was any probability of the presence of more gingerbread in the surgeon's pocket, the wandering Arab of the family (as stealthy and as quick as a cat) was certain to keep within reach of her friend. Nobody who knew her could doubt that she had stolen into Lucilla's bed-chamber, under cover of Herr Grosse's ample coat-tails. ”

“ One of the soaring singers is a small yellow field-finch of La Plata--Sycalis luteola; and this species, like some others, changes the form of its display with the seasons. It lives in immense flocks, and during the cold season it has, like most finches, only aerial pastimes, the birds wheeling about in a cloud, pursuing each other with lively chirpings. ”

“ Judging by certain signs visible in my reverend friend, I concluded that the announcement of Nugent Dubourg's coming visit to Dimchurch—regarded by the rest of us as heralding the appearance of a twin-brother—was regarded by Mr. Finch as promising the arrival of a twin-fortune. Oscar and Nugent shared the comfortable paternal inheritance. Finch smelt money.
"Compose yourself," I whispered to Lucilla as the two gentlemen followed us into the sitting-room. "Your jealousy of his brother is a childish jealousy. There is room enough in his heart for his brother as well as for you." ”

“ The male goldfinch behaves differently from all other finches: his wings are beautiful, the shoulders being black, with the dark-tipped wing-feathers spotted with white and edged with golden yellow. When he courts the female, he sways his body from side to side, and quickly turns his slightly expanded wings first to one side then to the other, with a golden flashing effect. No other British finch, as Mr. Weir informs me, turns during his courtship from side to side in this manner; not even the closely-allied male siskin, for he would not thus add to his beauty. ”

“ Yellowish green variegated with yellow and ash-grey. Length, six inches.
It has been a subject of mild wonder to me that the greenfinch is not more a favourite than I find him; for he is almost more with us than any other finch, and, in most cases, to know a bird well is to like it. Few of our eighteen finches can be seen and heard close to our houses. The brambling, siskin, redpoll, crossbill, and twite are scattered about the country in the cold and songless season; in summer we see little or nothing of them. The linnet is fairly abundant, but must be looked for on waste lands and commons ”

“ Perhaps also the association with his human teacher calls forth his affection as well as his power of song, for it is a fact that the piping bull-finch is, of all birds, given to attach itself to some one individual of the family where it is kept, expressing, at their approach, the most vehement delight, greeting them with its piping melody, hopping towards them, and practising all its little winning ways to show its love, and to court a return of caresses. ”

“ No: it was not the doctor's day for visiting Dimchurch. I had heard the landlord of the Gross Hands described as a capable and respectable man; and I suggested stopping at the inn, and taking him with us. Mr. Finch instantly brightened at that proposal. His sense of his own importance rose again, like the mercury in a thermometer when you put it into a warm bath.
"Exactly what I was about to suggest," he said. "Gootheridge of the Gross Hands is a very worthy person—for his station in life. Let us have Gootheridge, by all means. Don't be alarmed, Madame Pratolungo. ”

“ Here, as it soon turned out, there were at least four birds, all males, and all singing; chasing each other about after the most persistent fashion, in a piece of close shrubbery with tall trees interspersed, and acting —the four of them—just as two birds are often seen to do when contending for the possession of a building site. At a first hearing the song seems not so long sustained as the purple finch's commonly is, but exceedingly like it in voice and manner, though not equal to it, I should be inclined to say, in either respect. ”

“ In one hand, she held a dirty dogs'-eared book, which I at once detected to be a Circulating Library novel. Her other hand supported a baby enveloped in flannel, sucking at her breast. Such was my first experience of Reverend Finch's Wife—destined to be also the experience of all aftertime. Never completely dressed; never completely dry; always with a baby in one hand and a novel in the other—such was Finch's wife.
"Oh! Madame Pratolungo? Yes. I hope somebody has told Miss Finch you are here. She has her own establishment, and manages everything herself. ”

“ This elegant Finch, better known upon the Continent as "Cordon Bleu," is lively and restless in its habits, and the attachment testified by one little mate for the other renders them extremely attractive when caged. ”

“ To the reverend gentleman's amazement, it was I who began—and not he.
"I have just left Lucilla, Mr. Finch. I know what has happened."
"Wait a minute, Madame Pratolungo! One thing is of the utmost importance to begin with. Do you thoroughly understand that I am, in no sense of the word, to blame—?"
"Thoroughly," I interposed. "Of course, they would not have gone to Browndown, if you had consented to let Nugent Dubourg into the house."
"Stop!" said Mr. Finch, elevating his right hand. "My good creature, you are in a state of hysterical precipitation. I will be heard! ”

“ So this variation has not been eliminated by natural selection. This, I believe, is the case with the finch-lark. The bird has very short legs, so that when it is on the ground its black under parts are scarcely visible even to a human being walking on the ground, and certainly would not be seen by a bird of prey flying overhead. My experience is that the cock finch-lark is not more conspicuous than the hen. Both, when they alight on a ploughed field, are lost to human sight until they move. ”

“ The finest singers of America are thrushes, blackbirds and finches. The finches all have the canary twittering songs; the blackbirds the whistling, bubbling notes. The songs of the thrushes are pure rich melody, and many of them mock the songs of the warblers, the finches and the blackbirds. Another twittering finch is the snow-white and dead-black, short-billed grosbeak, with the patches of lovely rose color on the breast and under the wings. ”