GREENFINCH. 529 



little families unite, and flocking with Buntings and Finches, 

 feed in corn fields and stubble lands till winter and its pri- 

 vations oblige them to resort to the farmer's barn-doors 

 and stack-yard. 



The Greenfinch is found generally in all the cultivated 

 parts of England, Ireland, and Scotland, except, as stated 

 by Mr. Macgillivray, the western and northern islands of 

 Scotland. It is included by authors among the birds of 

 Denmark, Norway, and Sweden ; but according to M. 

 Nilsson, it is more common in Sweden in winter than in 

 summer. It is common in all the countries of southern 

 Europe, on many of the islands of the Mediterranean, and 

 is found even as far as Madeira. In a south-eastern di- 

 rection it was observed by Mr. Strickland to be common 

 at Smyrna. 



M. F. H. Kittlitz, a distinguished naturalist, who went 

 with a -Russian Expedition in 1827 to the South Seas, in 

 his published notes of the birds observed by himself, men- 

 tions at page .33, that he found this Greenfinch rather nu- 

 merous in small flocks on the coast of Bonin, or, as it is 

 named in some maps, Bonin-Siam, an island between four 

 hundred and five hundred miles east of Japan. The birds 

 inhabited tall woods near the shore ; and M. Kittlitz adds, 

 that they ran with facility, and searched for their food on 

 the ground. 



The adult male has the beak of a pale flesh colour ; the 

 irides hazel ; the whole of the head, neck, back, and upper 

 part of the wings olive green, or wax yellow ; the exterior 

 edges of the wings, from the carpal joint to the base of 

 the primaries, gamboge yellow ; the primaries greyish 

 black, with brilliant gamboge yellow edges on two-thirds 

 of their length, the outer third, forming the tip, of the 

 same colour as the body of the feather ; the greater wing- 



VOL. i. MM 



