72 Dr. Heineken on Fringilla Canaria, sc. 
that during the pairing season this is very common. Each flock has its own 
song, and from individuals in the same garden differing considerably, I 
suspect that of each nest varies more or less. After the breeding season 
they flock along with linnets, goldfinches, &c. and are then seldom seen 
in gardens. The moult takes place in August and September... An old 
bird caught and put into a cage will sometimes sing almost immediately, 
but seldom lives longer than the second year in confinement. The young 
from the nest are difficult to rear, dying generally at the first moult. 
They cross readily with the domesticated variety, and the progeny are 
larger, stronger, better breeders, and, to my taste, better songsters also 
than the latter ; but a pure wild song from an island Canary at liberty, in 
full throat, and in a part of the country so distant from the haunts of 
men that it is quite unsophisticated, is unequalled, in its kind, by any 
thing I have ever heard in the way of bird-music. 
In the 12th Edition of Linneus (Holmie, 1766.) Vol. I. p. 321, I find, 
‘¢ Fringilla butyracea. 
F. virens, superciliis pectore abdomineque flavis, remigibus primori- 
bus margine exteriore albis.—Chloris indica, Edw. av. 84, t. 84. Briss. 
av. 3, p. 195. 
Habitat in Madera: 
Similis Loxie butyracee, sed rostrum minus,”’ 
and as it appears to me to be clearly the same bird, although I acknow- 
ledge that I should not by choice call ours “ virens,”’ I have adopted it as 
a synonym, to the exclusion of his Fring. Canaria, and its numerous 
progeny, which must be spurious if ours be true. The reasons for ven- 
turing on such a liberty are, that ‘¢ virens’’ is not less applicable to it, than 
‘* grisea’ at the next page is to Fring. Petronia, or ‘ testacea’” a little 
further forwards to Motacilla Atricapilla; that in other respects his 
description answers precisely ; that he gives “* Madera’’ as its sole and 
decided habitat ; that we have no other bird either at all approaching to 
green,* or answering in the most distant manner to his description ; and 
* The Fring. Chloris is only blown to us occasionally and accidentally, and 
then only by twos and threes, and is never known to remain or build on the 
island. Two which a friend tricd to rear died, and in the course of several 
years I have met with only one specimen. Were I to enumerate all the birds 
common in Europe which are seen but seldom, if ever, here, a tolerably long 
