84 BRITISH BIRDS. 
principally in the mountains, and having its numbers largely increased 
during winter by migrants from the north. Great numbers winter im 
Palestine and Egypt; and in the west of North Africa it not only winters 
in considerable numbers, but a few remain to breed. 
There seems to be no account of the habits of the Serm except that of 
the great German ornithologist, Naumann; and I translate the following 
from his ‘Birds of Germany :’—“‘ It prefers to live m hilly cultivated 
districts, and is much rarer in the plains. It takes up its quarters chiefly 
in the orchards, in plantations, or avenues of fruit- and walnut-trees, in 
vineyards,. . . . and even in gardens in the middle of villages or cluse by 
houses. .... The male is most restless and joyous in fine spring weather ; 
he calls and sings continually from the tops of the trees, and delights to 
bound from one to the other in singular flight, sometimes hovering or 
rising and falling with trembling wings. His usual flight resembles that 
of the Siskin and similar birds and is very rapid; it would have nothing 
extraordinary about it if the birds did not attract attention by their peculiar 
voice during flight. . . . . Its song is very agreeable, clear as a bell,.... 
more like that of the Siskin than that of the Canary, with which it has 
been compared. When singing it is always perched high on the topmost 
spray of the tree or on a high branch..... It not only sings on the wing, 
as described, but sometimes springs from the top of a tree like a Tree- 
Pipit, almost perpendicularly, smging, then descends and continues its 
song on the same ora neighbouring spray... . . It feeds, like its congeners, 
on small seeds of various plants, especially those cultivated in gardens, or 
such as grow wild in vineyards and on the roadside, chiefly such as are 
oleaginous..... It shells all the seeds, and rejects the husks.” 
When I was in Dresden with Mr. Sclater and Mr. Forbes, we found the 
Serin very common in the Zoological Gardens outside the town. One 
of these little birds was singing from almost every clump of trees. It isa 
charming, delicate, little song, very much like that of the Siskin, but 
richer and more varied. Compared with the song of a Canary or a 
Nightingale, it might be called weak and monotonous; but I was 
charmed with its clearness and richness. The call-note is not unlike that 
of the Canary, and resembles the word sweet. Henke reintroduced me 
to the Seri in the charming little village where he lives in Saxon 
Switzerland, and took me to an orchard where he showed me a pair 
of birds busily engaged in building a nest on the branch of a pear-tree. 
He told me that it was only during the last twenty years that the Serin 
had become common near Dresden. Other ornithologists have noticed the 
recent increase in the numbers of this species in various localities. This is 
probably to be explained by supposing that previously the numbers had 
been very much lessened by an unusually hard winter or a heavy and 
sudden fall of snow, and that it has taken years before the natural increase 
