SISKIN. 573 



Eyton says it is common in Shropshire, mostly in company 

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

 occasional winter visitor to Ireland. From London the 

 numbers 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. In Suffolk and Norfolk they are 

 at times abundant. Dr. William Turner, who published 

 his Avium Prcecipuarium, &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 in 1844. 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. In the former county, a nest, in 

 form and materials very like that of the Redpole, was found 

 near the top of a tall spruce fir. Mr. Howitt, of Lan- 

 caster, sent me word that large flocks, containing several 

 hundred birds, have been seen there during winter ; a few 

 remained 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 species, "A few pairs not performing the migration 

 to its utmost 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 ex- 

 tensive wood at New Abbey, in Galloway. In their winter 

 migrations they are not regular, particular districts being 

 visited by them at uncertain periods. In Annandale, Dum- 

 friesshire, they were always accounted rare ; and the first 

 pair I ever saw there was shot in 1827. Early in October, 



