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PERCHING BIRDS 



the head and upper-parts are hair-brown tinged with golden green on 

 the wing-coverts and loins ; only the bases of the outer webs of the 

 primary quills are yellow, and there is little or no yellow at the root of 

 the tail ; while the under surface is pale brown with a tinge of golden 

 green on the abdomen. Young greenfinches are pale brown streaked 

 with darker brown above, and have the bases of the outer webs of the 

 primaries yellow, and the under-parts paler than in adult hens, but 

 never decidedly streaked ; the sexes may be distinguished at this age 



by the yellow at the root of the 

 tail in cocks. Owing to the 

 wcaring-away of the dull edges 

 ^1^^: ^^ y of the feathers, the plumage of 



the adults is more brightly 

 coloured in spring than in 

 autumn. 



The greenfinch may be 

 considered a hardy bird, as its 

 ^^^^^^^^^ breeding-range in Scandinavia 



^^n ^L^^^^^^^^^v extends least as high as 



j^^p ^^^^^^^^^^ the head of the Baltic, declin- 



ing, however, as usual, by about 

 5' when the Urals are reached. 

 Below these latitudes the whole 

 of Europe may be included in 

 the range of the species, which 

 extends as far east as Persia and 

 Turkestan. Greenfinches from 

 southern Europe are, however, 

 smaller and more brilliantly 

 coloured than the northern 

 birds, and form a separate race, 

 L. chloris auyantiivcntris. As might have been expected from its 

 northern range elsewhere, the greenfinch is to be found practically 

 everywhere in the British Isles, although it appears to be only a 

 winter-visitor to Orkney, and is not recorded from the Flannan Islands 

 in the Outer Hebrides. 



Although from the fact that it feeds its young chiefly on cater- 

 pillars, at which season it also consumes numbers of these pests on its 

 own account, the greenfinch may be credited with doing a certain 

 amount of good, yet in gardens it is a mischievous bird, although less 

 harmful than the bullfinch. The nest of moss, strengthened with a 



'ir^rui-SH 



GKKKNFINCH (MAI.E). 



