260 ACCENTOR ALPINUS. 



France, and Italy, having been met with in a few instances in 

 England, must be admitted into the list of British birds as a 

 rare visitant. In November 1822, a female was killed in the 

 garden of King's College, Cambridge, and is now in Dr 

 Thackeray''s collection. It had been accompanied by another 

 individual, which was supposed to have become the prey of a 

 cat, these birds having evinced an extraordinary degree of tame- 

 ness. In January 1882, Mr James Pamplin, in a letter to Mr 

 Loudon, published in the Magazine of Natural History, an- 

 nounced his having shot another in a garden on the borders of 

 Epping Forest. Lastly, Dr Goodenough, Dean of Wells in 

 Somersetshire, has intimated to Mr Yarrell the occurrence of 

 a third, which was shot in his garden. On the continent it is 

 said to frequent the higher regions in summer, whence it de- 

 scends on the approach of winter. Its food consists of insects 

 and seeds of various kinds, in which respect, as well as its in- 

 apprehension of danger from the proximity of man, it resembles 

 our common species. It generally breeds in rocky places, form- 

 ing its nest of moss, wool, and hair, and laying five light 

 greenish-blue eggs. 



Remarks. — The difference in the bills of Accentor and Eri- 

 thacus is very slight, and their wings are very similar. In 

 their habits these genera have no resemblance to the Tits ; 

 yet, in Mr Swainson's system, Accentor is a genus of the 

 Parinse, and has for a subgenus Seiurus, which certainly in 

 form and habits has not more affinity to Parus than to Mota- 

 cilla. The specimens from which the above description has 

 been taken were obtained from Paris. 



