168 FRINGILLID^E SERINUS 



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88. Serinus canicollis. Cape Canary. 



Crithagra canicollis, Swains. An. in Menag. p. 317 (1837). 



Serinus canicollis, Bp. Consp. i, p. 522 (1850) ; Sharpe, ed. Lanyard's 



B. 8. Afr. pp. 488, 850 (1884) ; id. Cat. B. M. xii, p. 350 (1888) ; 



Butler, Foreign Finches, p. 27, pi. (1894) ; Shelley, S. Afr. i, p. 21 



(1896). 

 Fringilla canicollis, Grill, Zool. Anteckn. p. 24 (1858) ; Layard, B. 8. 



Afr. p. 201 (1867). 



" Canarie " of the Dutch. 



Description. Adult male. Above, greenish-yellow, the back 

 slightly mottled with dusky ; rump and upper tail-coverts yellower 

 and not mottled ; wing-coverts greenish-yellow ; quills black edged 

 with yellow ; tail-feathers dusky-brown edged externally with 

 yellow ; crown bright yellow, the occiput tinged with green ; the 

 back and sides of neck grey ; lores dusky ; ear-coverts grey ; eyelids, 

 sides of face, cheeks and under surface of body golden-yellow, 

 brighter on the breast, the sides and flanks tinged with green ; 

 lower abdomen and thighs whitish ; axillaries and under wing- 

 coverts grey edged with yellow ; under surface of quills dusky, 

 their inner margins grey. 



Iris dark brown ; bill pale brown ; legs and feet grey-brown. 



Length 5'25 ; wing 3-10 ; tail 2-20 ; tarsus 0*55 ; culmen 0-40. 



Adult female. Above, the mantle and back browner than in the 

 male, streaked with dusky-brown ; crown pale yellow streaked with 

 dusky ; below a paler yellow. 



Length 4-80 ; wing 2-90 ; tail 2-05 ; tarsus 0-55 ; culmen 0-40. 



Distribution. Eesident in Cape Colony, Natal, the Orange Free 

 State and the Transvaal. Introduced into Reunion. 



Habits. This well known and favourite cage-bird is, in its wild 

 state, a common resident in nearly all districts that are overgrown 

 with bushes or low trees varied with open glades and clearings. 

 It is perhaps most abundant on the bush-clad lower slopes of hills 

 and mountains as well as in gardens and shrubberies, and I have 

 met with it in some numbers among the low scrub on the sandy 

 coast of Little Namaqua Land. In autumn and winter small flocks 

 frequent the more open pasture and ploughed land, to feed, with 

 other finches and weaver-birds, on small seeds and insects that 

 they find on the ground. The justly admired song of the Cape 

 Canary is prolonged and very sweet, and is compared by Dr. Euss 

 to that of a Lark. Individual birds, however, even in a wild state, 

 differ remarkably in the singing powers, some being far superior to 



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