30 FOREIGN FINCHES IN CAPTIVITY. 



THE ST. HELENA SEED-EATER. 



Serinus flaviventris, SWAINS.* 



T NHABITS South Africa, and, according to Mr. Abrahams, also 

 1 occurs in a wild state in St. Helena into which island it has 

 doubtless been introduced. 



The general colour of the upper surface in the cock bird is 

 yellowish green, with blackish shaft-streaks, the rump more distinctly 

 yellow, and unmarked ; upper tail-coverts dull yellow, blackish centred ; 

 tail feathers blackish, with yellow edges ; lesser wing-coverts greenish 

 yellow ; median and greater coverts blackish, edged with yellowish 

 green ; bastard wing and primary- coverts blackish, fringed with dull 

 yellow, flight feathers blackish, edged with yellow, most broadly on 

 the secondaries ; the forehead and broad eye-brow golden yellow ; lores 

 dull greenish ; feathers round the eye yellow, as also those below it ; 

 ear-coverts yellowish green, cheeks bright yellow ; a dull greenish 

 streak from below the eye along the cheeks, leaving a golden yellow 

 patch on the front of the ear-coverts, under surface of body golden 

 yellow, as also the under wing coverts and axillaries ; flights below 

 dusky, with greyish inner edges. Length 5 , s a inches. Beak horn- 

 coloured ; the upper mandible dusky ; legs dusky ; iris hazel. 



The hen is much duller and browner in colouring, the back much 

 more heavily streaked with blackish, all the yellow-colouring either 

 replaced by green as on the rump, paler yellow as on the edges of the 

 wing and tail feathers, or greyish white as on the abdomen and under 

 sides of the flights ; the breast and flank streaked with smoky brown. 

 Length 5 inches. 



This exceedingly beautiful Serin has a really fine song, only 

 surpassed by that of its tiny relative the Grey Singing Finch, to which 

 indeed it bears a considerable resemblance, excepting that it is louder, 

 less sustained, and far more rarely heard. 



In 1892, finding that my St. Helena Seed-eater, the hen of which 



* The scientific name S. butyracea has now been set aside to avoid confusion, Linnaeus having 

 given the same specific name to two nearly allied species of Serins, referred by him to the 

 genera Loxia and Fringilla respectively. 



