88 BRITISH BIRDS. 
Afghanistan, the North-west Himalayas, and Turkestan. A variety of the 
Goldfinch having the throat white has been obtained at Pesth, and has 
been described under the name of C. albogularis; but further information 
is necessary to prove that this variation is constant. 
Although this charming little bird loves to dwell in the richest parts of 
the country, it is most common on those little pieces of waste land which, 
in spite of “ high farming,” are still left in their primeval state to grow 
thistles and docks and other rank weeds in abundance. The Goldfinch is 
an attendant upon the slovenly farmer who does not make use of his “ odd 
corners”’ and is not very careful about his hedgerows ; but on those farms 
where scarcely a weed is left to grow the bird is rarely seen. It does not 
affect the deep woods like some Finches, nor does it frequent the pine- and 
fir-woods. It may often be seen in country orchards, and appears to 
have a partiality for the neighbourhood of houses, and near them it 
most commonly builds its nest. It is a very active little bird, almost as 
much so as a Titmouse or a Willow- Wren. 
Dixon made the following notes on this bird :—“ The Goldfinch is one 
of the commonest and most widely spread birds in Algeria. It haunts the 
palm-studded oases, the orange-groves, fig- and prickly-pear gardens, even 
on the borders of the Great Desert, just as much as the luxuriant forest 
country of the Aurés. It is not, however, a bird of the wilderness ; it 
inhabits the cultivated districts, especially the Arab gardens, building its 
nest in their fruit-trees and warbling incessantly from the sprays of bloom. 
T never in any place saw the Goldfinch so common as at Oued Taga, the 
mountain home of the Kaid of the Aurés, lying at an elevation of probably 
4000 feet above the sea. The gardens at this Arab settlement were full 
of them. I often counted three or four in the same tree, and the air was 
made resonant with their charming song. They were not at all shy; the 
Arab never molests them; and they breed in his apple-trees in abundance. 
I often. saw them upon the ground, and searching the twigs and branches 
of the trees as if looking for insects, which probably form their staple food 
in the summer months. In the oases the Goldfinch does not appear to 
affect the palm trees like the Serm Finch, but is especially fond of the 
luxuriant gardens gay with flowers and literally buried in an exuberance 
of greenest foliage. Here they nest in the apricot- and fig-trees ; and at 
El Kantara in May a pair were making their neat little home in a fork of a 
lemon-tree almost within arm’s length of the windows of the ‘ Hétel d’El 
Kantara,’ as the tiny little French caravansérai is ambitiously named.” 
The song of the Goldfinch is almost as loud and sweet as that of the 
Linnet, and is commenced almost before the winter is over, being some- 
times heard as early as the beginning of March, and it will continue 
through the summer (in the latter part less frequently) till the moulting- 
season in August. The ordinary call-note of this bird is a sharp and 
