A white patch on the two outermost tail feathers and the ones next them. Wings with one white and one yellowish transverse band. Male: upper side of head and neck bluish grey, back brown, breast reddish brown. Female: back grey-brown, belly whitish, breast ash-grey. The chaffinch inhabits forests, both those of ordinary foliage trees and those consisting of conifers; it also nests in gardens and plantations. At the beginning of September the males separate from the females, and both sexes collect in large flocks which haunt gardens, avenues, and bushes. In mild winters they remain resident, but travel away if the cold is greater. The chaffinch devours oil-containing seeds by preference, but also eats starchy ones, and seeks its food on the ground. It does a great deal of damage in cornfields by picking the seeds out of the soil after they have been sown; but does not take the grain from the ear. It also eats young seedlings. But valuable services more than counterbalance the harm done. When the chaffinches in autumn fly about in large flocks in the fields, they eat an enormous number of weed seeds. The young are chiefly fed with insects, especially with caterpillars. In the spring, when the seeds have germinated and the young corn is not yet ripe, the chaffinch feeds itself also on insects. Group: =Subulirostres= (_Awl-beaked Perching Birds_). Beak slender, awl-shaped, round in transverse section. A fully developed organ of voice. Feed almost exclusively on insects; there are only a few species which occasionally eat seeds. A few of them, however, sometimes devour juicy fruits (cherries, bird-cherries, elder-berries, juniper-berries, grapes). The birds belonging to this group, without exception, feed their young on insects. They are of service; even those species which occasionally do damage are useful on the whole. There belong to the Subulirostres— The =Wagtails= (_Motacilla_), _e.g._ the =White Wagtail= (_M. alba_), usually living in the neighbourhood of water, and seeking its insect food in the fields (often behind the plough), and in pastures and gardens. The lark-coloured =Pipits= (_Anthus_). The =Hedge Accentor=, or “Sparrow” (_Accentor modularis_),—in garden hedges, and woods, feeding sometimes on seeds. The following “warblers:” =Nightingale= (_Daulias luscinia_), =Robin= (_Erithacus rubecula_), =Redstart= (_Ruticilla phœnicurus_), the =Lesser Whitethroat= (_Sylvia curruca_), =Garden Warbler= (_S. hortensis_), =Willow Wren= (_S. trochilus_), =Chiffchaff= (_S. rufa_), =Reed Warblers= (_Acrocephalus streperus_ and _A. arundinacea_), etc. The last-named live among reeds and rushes on the banks of fresh waters, and eat insects which do not affect agriculture and forestry; all the other warblers are useful. Other examples of the Subulirostres are the =Golden-crested Wren= (_Regulus cristatus_), and the =Common Wren= (_Troglodytes parvulus_), which are of service to forestry and fruit-tree culture, but not to agriculture.