96 BRITISH BIRDS. 
FRINGILLA MONTIFRINGILLA. 
BRAMBLING. 
(PxLate 13.) 
Carduelis suecica, Briss. Orn. iii. p. 63 (1760). 
Passer montifringilla, Briss. Orn, iii. p. 155 (1760); et auctorum plurimorum— 
(Scopoli), (Gmelin), (Latham), (Bonaparte), (Temminck), (Degland § Gerbe), 
(Salvadorr), (Newton), (Dresser), &e. 
Fringilla montifringilla, Zinn. Syst, Nat. i. p. 318 (1766), 
Fringilla lulensis, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 318 (1766). 
Fringilla flammea, Beseke, Vog. Kurl. p. 79 (1821). 
Struthus montifringilla (Lriss.), Bote, Isis, 1828, p. 323. 
Fringilla septentrionalis, Brehm, Vog. Deutschl. p. 274 (1881). 
Fringilla media, Jaub. Rev. et Mag, de Zool. v. p. 117 (1853). 
The Brambling is only known as a winter migrant to our islands, 
arriving late in the autumn and remaining until early in the following 
spring. Its visits are exceedingly irregular and erratic, and districts 
frequented by thousands of the birds one year may be entirely deserted the 
next. Apart from this the bird is generally distributed throughout our 
islands in winter; but it appears to be less numerous in the extreme west 
of England, and in the Channel Islands its appearance is only exceptional. 
In Scotland it is perhaps more numerous than in England and as widely 
dispersed, although it only sparingly visits the inner islands of the west 
coast, and probably never reaches the outer islands at all. The Shetland 
Islands are only used by this bird as a resting-place on its annual journeys 
to and from its northern breeding-grounds. A small flock once visited the 
Faroes. In Ireland the Brambling is probably as widely distributed as in 
England and Scotland; but Mr. Watters states that its numbers gradually 
decline as it reaches the south. The Brambling has been reported to have 
bred several times in the British Islands; but such a circumstance is very 
improbable, and until more decisive proofs have been obtained than those 
already put forward, the statement cannot be accepted. 
The Brambling is confined to the eastern hemisphere, and ranges from 
the Atlantic to the Pacific. It breeds throughout the northern portions 
of the Palearctic Region, frequenting the pine- and especially the birch- 
forests at or near the limit of forest-growth. In Scandinavia it breeds as 
far south as lat. 60°; but in the valley of the Amoor, where the mean tem- 
perature is so much lower, it breeds as low as lat. 50°. It wanders south- 
wards in winter, a few birds remaining in the southern limits of its breeding- 
range, but others straying as far south as Southern Europe and even 
Algeria. It also winters in Asia Minor, Turkestan, the north-west Hima- 
