A VES. 6s 



111. Scriinis Iiortnlanus. Koch. Salig. u. Vcig. Baierns., p. 229. 

 The Serin. 



The Serin, so far as I have been able to observe, is only a winter visitor 

 to the wooded districts and little glens near the sea. It has not been 

 noticed inland. 



The Serin Is the representative of the Siskin in Central and Southern 

 Europe, the North African coast, and Asia IMinor. Syria is its extreme 

 Eastern limit. 



112. Scrinns pnsillus. (Pall. Zoog. R. A. ii., p. iS.) Red-fronted 

 Siskin. 



The Red-fronted Finch occurs in Lebanon. 



It is a bird of South-east Asia, a resident in the Caucasus and Taurid 

 range, and along the mountain region as far as Ladak. It appears to be 

 an uncertain visitor to the North-west Himalayas. 



wx,. Serimis canoniais. Dresser. Birds of Europe, vol. iii., p. 555. 

 Tristram's Serin. 



Plate IX. Figs, i, 2. 



The name which I gave to this Siskin when I discovered it in 1864 

 was Scrinus mn-ifrons (P. Z. S., 1864, p. 447). But this, having been 

 once used, though afterwards abandoned by Blyth, for another bird, has 

 been discarded by the purists of nomenclature. 



This is one of the interesting peculiar forms of Palestine, though 

 belonging not to the Dead Sea valley, but to the Lebanon and Anti- 

 Lebanon exclusively. It is a true Siskin in its habits, note, and nidifica- 

 tion. It never migrates, but descends to the villages on the edge of the 

 snow-line in winter, re-ascending as high as there are bushes in spring. I 

 cannot trace it on any of the spurs southwards, either from Hermon or 

 Lebanon, and there it is very local. Its nest, very like a Goldfinch's, is 

 rather conspicuously placed in the fork of a tall shrub. In winter it lives 

 in little flocks, and is wild and shy. In spring the male bird always 

 revealed the nest by his persistent return, after a minute or two, to recom- 

 mence his song close to it. 



