The Goldfinch Abroad 



wild state in South Africa ; in this case also, 

 apparently, by accident. It seems that Mr. 

 Barton, a soldier of the Suffolk Regiment, when 

 returning from the late war, brought with him 

 two goldfinches which he had caught himself 

 when in the Transvaal, on the hills at Heidel- 

 berg. He found them common halfway up these 

 hills, and evidently breeding, since one of his 

 birds was in immature plumage — what our bird- 

 fanciers call a "grey-pate" — when captured. 

 Mr. Barton had also caught in the same locality 

 some canaries, which Mr. E. A. Butler, who 

 communicated these facts to the Zoologist, 

 could not distinguish from ordinary variegated 

 domestic birds. This looks rather like an 

 accident to somebody's aviary, or perhaps the 

 owner of one, foreseeing the political disturb- 

 ances, had given his birds their liberty lest they 

 might lack proper attention. The editor of the 

 Zoologist, Mr. W. L. Distant, states that in four 

 years in the Transvaal he had never heard of 

 goldfinches in the wild state, and that a friend of 

 his in Pretoria found them difficult to keep for 

 any length of time even in an aviary ; so that 

 this introduction is the more remarkable. It is 

 to be hoped, in any case, that the goldfinches 

 will thrive as well in this part of the Southern 

 Hemisphere as they have further to the east in 

 Australasia. 



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