The Goldi-ixcm 69 



Family— FRIXG ILL ID. E. Sii/La,uily—LKL\ '( i/L L LW E. 



The Goldfinch. 



CdJ-LucIis clci^a)is, vSteph. 



DR. SHARPE states that this bird iuhabits Europe generally, except the 

 extreme north ; the Canar}- Islands, Madeira, and the countries bordering 

 the Mediterranean : it is a winter visitant to Eg3'pt and Palestine. In 

 Siberia it extends to Omsk and Krasuo3-arsk, and winters in Turkestan. 



In Great Britain the Goldfinch is pretty generally distributed throughout 

 England, and in suitable localites in Scotland and Ireland, though the wholesale 

 destruction of woods, plantations and so-called waste land has rendered the species 

 comparatively rare and local in man}- parts of Great Britain. In the north of 

 Kent, where the nest might be obtained fairly commonly, year after year, about 

 thirty-five years ago, it is now hardly ever met with, excepting perhaps in 

 strictly private gardens, pleasure-grounds, and orchards : indeed, I believe it is 

 fully twenty-three years since I last saw a wild Kentish Goldfinch in the summer- 

 time. 



This is the most beautiful of our British Finches : the adult male has the 

 forehead broadly satinj'-crimson, extending at the sides as a superciliary streak 

 which sometimes passes behind the eye and unites with a broad patch of the same 

 colour on the front of the face below the lores, and on the throat ; the lores, feathers 

 at base of beak and chin black : crown and feathers behind the cheeks black ; 

 cheeks snow-white (slightly stained in the centre with buffish-brown, especially 

 in young birds) continuous with a white belt encircling the back of the throat : 

 back greyish copper-brown, with a transverse white spot on the nape ; wings blue- 

 black, occasionally slightly glossed wdth Prussian-green ou the lesser coverts; 

 greater coverts golden-yellow ; the basal two-thirds of the primaries, excepting the 

 first, with the outer webs bright golden-yellow, the secondaries also with broad 

 yellow bases, so that the wing appears to be broadly belted with yellow ; inner 

 primaries and outer secondaries tipped with white, inner secondaries with buffish- 

 brown ; upper tail-coverts whitish, washed with buffish-brown, in Continental birds 

 sometimes white, varied with sienna or reddish-buff; tail feathers blue-black, the 

 central ones tipped wnili white, the two outer ones with a large oval white patch 



