- SERIN FINCH. 85 
has restored them to their usual abundance. Small birds, like the Dartford. 
Warbler, which winter north of Central Europe, are sometimes almost 
exterminated in some localities by bad weather. 
Dixon met with this bird in Algeria, and writes as follows :—~ We did 
not meet with this charming little bird until we arrived in the most tropical 
portion of Algeria—in the palm-oases of El Kantara and Biskra. It is a 
bird that appears to love the richest districts, and we never met with it in 
the pine- and cedar-forests on the Aurés. In the oases the birds inhabited 
the luxuriant gardens, the groves of fig-trees, and were seen amongst the 
apricot-trees and wealth of shrubs bountifully clothed in the fairest of 
blooms. But amongst this semitropical verdure the Serin is difficult 
to see, and you only catch a hasty glimpse of it as it appears on the outer- 
most branches for a moment and then disappears again. Amongst the 
date-palms, however, it is very conspicuous. There is little or no under- 
wood beneath these trees, and the bird perches exclusively upon them. It 
was seen sitting on the topmost point of the broad leaves, sixty feet 
from the ground, whence it occasionally took a little fluttering flight 
into the air to catch an insect from the swarms flitting round the tree-tops. 
Allthe Finches in summer-time are more or less insectivorous, and the little 
Serin is no exception ; indeed it seems most industrious in its search after 
insects, not only flitting into the air but occasionally clinging to the stems 
of the palm trees, as if searching for its food amongst the rugged bark. 
We repeatedly saw it, too, upon the tops of the walls that divide the Arab 
gardens ; but it was always rather shy, and after a moment or two’s rest 
flew off to its usual refuge, the tops of the date-palms. Although it 
must have been its breeding-season (May), we never heard it utter any 
song—only its sweet and somewhat plaintive little call-note.” 
The nest of the Serin, though very loosely made of short slender stalks 
and roots, held together with thistle-down, spider’s web, and bits of wool 
or cotton, is very carefully and neatly constructed. There is no special 
lining, except that the proportion of soft material is greater imside than 
outside. The outside diameter is only about 2? inches, and that of the 
inside only 12 mches; the depth is little more than an inch. Naumann 
says that hair and feathers are used in the lining; but the nests I have seen 
have never contained either. The nest is generally built m fruit-trees, but 
frequently in other small trees and shrubs. Five is the usual number of 
eggs, but sometimes there are only four. They are on an average smaller 
than those of the Goldfinch or Siskin, but are indistinguishable from them, 
being subject to the same variations of colour. The length ranges from 
‘65 to ‘6 inch, and the breadth from ‘5 to 45 inch. The ground-colour is 
very pale bluish green, more or less spotted and blotched and occasionally 
streaked, chiefly at the large end, with dark reddish-brown overlying spots 
and pale reddish-brown underlying ones. 
