Last winter in the stress of the sharp and continued frosts the greenfinches were driven in December to swallow the shrivelled blackberries still on the brambles.
The fruity part of the berries was of course gone, and nothing remained but the seeds or pips, dry and hard as wood; they were reduced to feeding on this wretched food.

Perhaps the last of the seeds available are those of the docks.
This is well known to bird-fowlers, and on a dry day in January they take two large bunches of docks--'red docks' they call them--tied round the centre like faggots and well smeared at the top with birdlime.

These are placed on the ground, by a hedge, and near them a decoy goldfinch in a cage.

Goldfinches eat dock-seed, and if any approach the decoy-bird calls.

The wild bird descends from the hedge to feed on the dock-seed and is caught.