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THE BIRDS OF THE WOODS 



always keeping to the same route. The bullfinches of the north travel long 

 distances, their southward migration lasting from October until December, and the 

 return to their nesting-haunts taking place in February and March. They travel 

 in flocks of six to twelve, sometimes of twenty or thirty, consisting, strangely 

 enough, sometimes of only male birds, and sometimes chiefly of females. The 

 species has been divided into several races, among which is the large P. vulgaris 

 major, inhabiting the east and north of Europe and central Asia, but often breeding 

 in Pomerania and east Russia, and the typical western form, which nests in 



SERIN FINCH AND NEST. 



Serin Finch. 



France, Switzerland, south-west and central Germany, and Austria-Hungary, but 

 in most of those countries is never very abundant. 



Generally at home in the outskirts of a wood near fields and 

 meadows, or in parks and enclosures near villages where there are 

 plenty of trees, such as willows and alders, in the neighbourhood of rivers or any 

 piece of water, the serin finch (Serinus hortulanus) ranges all over southern 

 Europe, and is common in Algeria and Tunis. It appeared in south-western 

 Germany, from its southern home, in the beginning of the last century, for in 1818 

 it was found, not only on the Rhine, but at Frankfort-on-the-Main. Seventeen 



