THE



99



Avicultural Magazine,


BEING THE JOURNAL OF

THE AVICULTURAL SOCIETY.



Third Series .— Vol. VII.—No. 4. —All rights reserved. FEBRUARY, 1916.



THE EUROPEAN GOLDFINCH.


Garduelis elegans.


By Dr. A. G. Butler.


Our editor has asked me to write an article on this bird and

therefore I have consented, although I am afraid that I can say little

if anything respecting it which has not already been published else¬

where. I regard it as the most beautiful of our English finches, and

consequently (since I first began to keep living birds) I have rarely,

if ever, been without at least a pair of the species.


The geographical distribution of the Goldfinch and its color¬

ation have been so often described that there is no necessity to

repeat them here, but it may perhaps he useful to state once more

the characters which distinguish the sexes :—the male is slightly

larger than the female, slimmer in outline, usually with a straighter

beak ; he appears to stand more erect and is certainly more alert

than the female. In colouring he is altogether brighter, the crimson

of the face more intense and extended slightly farther back, the

white areas much purer (less stained with brown), the rump always

more or less white (a character especially pronounced in the larger

Siberian race), in the female there is sometimes a trace of white on

the rump, but in some examples it is wholly lacking ; the rufous-

brown patches on the breast of the male are larger and more richly

coloui’ed and the yellow belt across the wing decidedly broader, of a

deeper colour and much more regular in outline; in the female the

division on the eighth (formerly described as the third) primary



