Volume 24, Plate XIX / Ornithology (Birds)

Common Bullfinch

Pyrrhula vulgaris

The Common Bullfinch is widely distributed yet nowhere numerous, retiring and frequenting woods and plantations, feeding on buds, often damaging fruit crops, and on seeds, and building a careless nest holding greenish blue eggs spotted reddish. The male shews a velvety black crown, throat, wings, and tail, bluish grey back, white rump, and delicate tile red cheeks and underparts, and in confinement it is prized as a piping songster.