498 FRINGILLID.E. 



Eyton says it is common in Shropshire, mostly in company 

 with the Little Rcdpole ; and Mr. Thompson says it is an 

 occasional winter visiter to Ireland. From London the num- 

 bers of this bird increase as we proceed northward, and 

 they are almost always seen in flocks in winter, and feeding 

 on the seeds of the alder. Li Suffolk and Norfolk, they are 

 at times abundant. Dr. William Turner, who published his 

 Avium Pracipjiariiiin, &c. in 1544, mentions having then 

 seen the Siskin in the fields of Cambridgeshire, and the Rev. 

 L. Jenyns also records their appearance in the same county 

 at the present time. They are not uncommon in winter in 

 Lincolnshire and Yorkshire ; and Mr. Selby observes them 

 to be more or less abundant every winter in Durham and 

 Northumberland. Mr. Howitt, Jun. of Lancaster, sends 

 me word that large flocks, containing several hundred birds, 

 have of late years been seen there during winter ; a few re- 

 mained in the summer of 1836 to breed, six pair of old 

 birds were seen about, and later in the season several young 

 ones. 



Sir William Jardine, in a note appended to the descrip- 

 tion of the American Siskin, in the first volume of his edition 

 of Wilson''s American Ornithology, says of our British spe- 

 cies, " A few pairs not performing the migration to its ut- 

 most northern extent, breed in the larger pine woods in the 

 Highlands of Scotland. In 1829 they were met with in 

 June, in a large fir wood at Killin, evidently breeding ; last 

 year they were known to breed in an extensive wood at New 

 Abbey in Galloway. In their Avinter migrations they are 

 not regular, particular districts being visited by them at un- 

 certain periods. In Annandale, Dumfriesshire, they were 

 always accounted rare ; and the first pair I ever saw there was 

 shot in 1827. Early in October, as the winter advanced, 

 very large flocks arrived, and fed chiefly upon the ragweed, 

 and under some large beech trees, turning over the fallen mast, 



