All the plumage yellowish green, variegated with yellow and ash-grey. Length six inches. Eggs bluish white, speckled and spotted with purplish grey and dark brown.
The Greenfinch, or Green Linnet, is one of our most generally diffused birds. No bird is a more frequent inhabitant of country gardens during the summer than this, being attracted, it would seem, not so much by the prospect of abundance of food, as by its fondness for building its nest in evergreens and the thick hedges of shrubberies. The lively greenish yellow tint of the plumage on its throat and breast sufficiently distinguish it from any other British bird; and its note, when once identified, can be confounded with no other song. Let any one who wishes to obtain a sight of one, walk anywhere in the country where there are trees, on a bright sunny day in May or June, and listen for a monotonous long-drawn croak, trying to pronounce the syllable '_twe-e-e_' or '_bree-eze_'. No matter what other birds may be tuning their lays, the harsh monotone of the Greenfinch, if one be near, will be heard among them, harmonizing with none, and suggestive of heat and weariness. In a few seconds it will be repeated, without a shadow of variation either in tone or duration; and if it be traced out, the author of the noise (music I cannot call it) will be discovered perched among the branches of a moderately high tree, repeating his mournful ditty with extreme complacency for an hour together. Very often he takes advantage of the midday silence of the groves, and pipes away without any other competitor than the Yellow Hammer, whose song, like his own, is a constant accompaniment of sultry weather. The Greenfinch has another note which is heard most frequently, but not exclusively, in spring. This is a single plaintive chirp which may be easily imitated by human whistling; it resembles somewhat one of the call-notes of the Canary-bird or Brown Linnet, and, being full and sweet, harmonizes with the woodland chorus far better than the monotonous croak described above. Another of the notes is a double one, and closely resembles that of the 'Peewit', hence it is called in some places 'Pee-sweep'. The Greenfinch builds its nest, when not among evergreens, in some tall thick bush either in a hedge or coppice. Less neatly finished than that of the Chaffinch, it is nevertheless a beautiful structure. It is composed externally of a framework of light twigs and roots, interleaved with moss and wool, to which succeeds a denser layer of the same materials lined with hair. It lays five eggs, which are of a light grey colour, almost white, variously speckled with purple, and of a long shape. In winter, Greenfinches congregate in large numbers, and feed together on the seeds of various weeds in stubble fields, or not unfrequently they descend on newly-sown fields of wheat, where they are very troublesome. If disturbed, they rise simultaneously, fly rapidly only a few feet from the ground to another part of the field, but before they alight wheel about several times with singular precision of movement, disappearing from the sight and reappearing according as the dark or light portion of their plumage is turned towards the spectator; and by this peculiarity they may be distinguished from flocks of other small birds at a great distance. If repeatedly disturbed, they alter their tactics, and take refuge in the top branches of the neighbouring trees until their persecutor has turned his back, when they return to the charge with the same perseverance which they display in the repetition of their summer song. These flocks, probably, are composed of individuals which have banded together in some more northern climate, and emigrated southwards in quest of food; for smaller parties, either unmixed, or associated with Sparrows, Chaffinches, and Buntings, frequent our farmyards and gardens in undiminished numbers.