SISKIN 847 



it is most nearly allied to the Goldfinch, and both are often placed 

 in the same genus by systematists ; but in its stjde of coloration, 

 and still more in its habits, it resembles the Redpolls, though 

 without their slender figure, being indeed rather short and stout of 

 build. Yet it hardly yields to them in activit}^ or in the grace of 

 its actions, as it seeks its food from the catkins of the alder or birch, 

 regardless of the attitude it assumes while so doing. Of an olive- 

 green above, deeply tinted in some parts with black and in others 

 lightened by yellow, and beneath of a yellowish-white again marked 

 with black, the male of this species has at least a becoming if not a 

 brilliant garb, and possesses a song that is not unmelodious, though 

 the resemblance of some of its notes to the running-down of a piece 

 of clockwork is more remarkable than pleasing. The hen is still 

 more soberly attired ; but it is perhaps the Siskin's disposition to 

 familiarity that makes it so favourite a captive, and, though as a 

 cage-bird it is not ordinarily long-lived, it readily adapts itself to 

 the loss of liberty. Moreover, if anything like the needful accom- 

 modation be afforded, it will build a nest and therein lay its eggs, 

 but it rarely succeeds in bringing up its young in confinement. As 

 a wild bird it breeds constantly, though locally, throughout the 

 greater part of Scotland, and has frequently done so in England, 

 but more rarely in Ireland. The greater portion, however, of the 

 numerous bands which visit the British Islands in autumn and 

 winter doubtless come from the Continent — perhaps even from far 

 to the eastward, since its range stretches across Asia to Japan, in 

 which country it is as favourite a cage-bird as with us. The nest 

 of the Siskin is very like that of the Goldfinch, but seldom so neatly 

 built ; the eggs, except in their smaller size, much resemble those 

 of the Greenfinch. 



A larger and more brightly coloured species, C. spinoidcs, inhabits 

 the Himalayas, and another, C. tibetana, is found in Sikhim ; but the 

 Siskin has many more relatives belonging to the New World, and 

 in them serious modifications of structure, especially in the form of 

 the bill, occur. Some of these relatives lead almost insensibly to 

 the Greenfinch and its allies, others to the Goldfinch, the Eedpolls 

 and so on. Thus the Siskin perhaps may be regarded as one of the 

 less modified descendants of a parent stock whence such forms as 

 those just mentioned have sprung. Its striated plumage also 

 favours this view, as an evidence of permanent immaturity or 

 generalization of form, since striped feathers are so often the earliest 

 clothing of many of these birds, which only get rid of them at their 

 first moult. On this theory the Yellowbird or North-American 

 " Goldfinch," C. tristis, would seem, with its immediate allies, to 

 rank among the highest forms of the group, and the Pine-Goldfinch, 

 C. pinus, of the same country, to be one of the lowest, — the cock of 

 the former being generally of a bright jonquil hue, with black 



