of the Central Pyrenees. 73 



This little bird has some points, probably merely superficial, 

 ill common with the Greenfinch — so many, in fact, that it 

 has frequently seemed to me a diminutive congener of Ligu- 

 rini/s chlorls. The distribution of bright colour in the males 

 is similar, some of the call-notes are much alike, and even 

 the wavering, irregular nuptial flight, which I had thought 

 peculiar to the Greenfinch, is precisely re[)roduced by the 

 male Serin, The ne^ts and eggs, allowing for differences of 

 size, are curiously alike in position and materials, shape and 

 colouring. The cock Serin is the most invisible of any bird 

 I know ; he can sit betw^eentwo green leaves, himself seeming 

 a third, and sing for five minutes whilst you vainly try to 

 distinguish him with the binoculars. 



43. LiGURiNUs cHLORis (Linn.). 



I saw a Greenfinch in the hotel garden at Bagneres-de- 

 Luchon (2065 feet), and nowhere else throughout the 

 Pyrenees. 



44. MONTIFRINGILLA NIVALIS (LinU.). 



One may count upon Snow-Finches among outcrops of 

 splintered rock above the snow-line. At the watershed of the 

 Port de Gavamie, on the Pic Perdu, among the rocks at the 

 Col de Allanz, and on the summit of the Pic du Midi de 

 Bigorre I enjoyed a dozen opportunities of watching this 

 hardy little bird. Nothing in its behaviour pointed to 

 nesting having begun on June 2 1 st. Though pretty generally 

 distributed among the higher Pyrenees, it seems a less suc- 

 cessful species there than at certain places in the Bernese 

 Oberland, where one may watch flocks of a hundred wheeling, 

 twittering, and performing aerial evolutions more like Dunlins 

 than Finches. The men at the Observatory upon the Pic 

 du Midi assured me that the Pinson de neige did not nest 

 until July. 



A Rock-Sparrow is in the collection at Eaux-Bonnes ; the 

 skin is neither named, dated, nor localized, but I may as well 

 mention it, as all the skins there that are named seem to have 

 been locally obtained, except perhaps the Black Grouse, and 

 that mav be found there also for au"ht I know. 



