10S FRINGILLIDJE. 



southern lowlands. In Sweden its northern range does not 

 seem to he so extensive, hut it is common in the central and 

 southern parts. It occurs pretty generally, though sparingly, 

 throughout Finland, excepting in the north, and is thought 

 occasionally to winter there. The same may be said of it in 

 Russia, but it appears to become rare on the eastern slopes 

 of the Ural mountains, and not to shew itself further in 

 Siberia than the river Ob*, nor has it been met with beyond 

 the Talgyche mountains in the Caucasus. In South Russia 

 it is said to be rare in summer, though a common bird of 

 double-passage. Yet it would appear to breed in Asia Minor, 

 and is abundant in some parts of Palestine in winter, dis- 

 appearing however in spring. In Greece it remains all the 

 year round, its numbers receiving a great increase in winter ; 

 but it is not known to cross the Mediterranean towards its 

 eastern end. In Algeria it breeds plentifully, and is found 

 also in Morocco, but the birds which inhabit North- Western 

 Africa, being somewhat smaller in size and rather brighter 

 in plumage than their European brethren, have been recog- 

 nized by some ornithologists as forming a distinct species, 

 named by Dr. Cabanis Ligurinus aurantiiventris. Mr. 

 Dresser, however, after examining a large series of specimens 

 and availing himself of the experience of the more modern 

 Mauritanian and Iberian travellers, thinks that this specific 

 distinction cannot be maintained. It has been observed as a 

 straggler to Madeira, and both in Portugal and Spain it is 

 common all the year round, while throughout the rest of 

 Europe its distribution needs no further remark. 



* Pallas says it occurs in Kamchatka, and in the islands to the eastward, but 

 there is little doubt that he was herein mistaken, and that the bird sent to him 

 from the former locality was one of the two allied, but yet distinct species in- 

 habiting Eastern Asia and its adjacent islands, the smaller of which — the 

 Fringilla sinica of Linnaeus — was observed by Prof. Radde on the A moor. Herr 

 von Kittlitz also, the naturalist of a Russian Expedition, in 1827, to the Pacific, 

 fell into the same error, stating (Mem. Acad. Petersb. par Saw etrang. i. p. 241) 

 that he found F. r/</<>ris rather numerous on the coast of Boninsima - an island 

 between four and five hundred miles east of Japan; but in the account of his 

 tge, published in 1859 (Denkwurdigk. u.s.w. ii. p. 182), he corrected the 

 mistake and referred his bird to the F. kawaraliiba of Temminck, the larger of 

 the two species above spoken of. 



