546 FRINGILLHLE. 



Mr. Eyton says it is common in Shropshire, mostly in com- 

 pany with the Little Eedpole ; 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 Pracipuarium, Sec. in 1544, men- 

 tions having then seen the Siskin in the fields of Cambridge- 

 shire, and the Rev. L. Jenyns also records their appear- 

 ance in the same county at the present time. 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. Mr. 

 Howitt, jun. of Lancaster, sends me word that large flocks, 

 containing several hundred birds, have of late years 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 Oc- 

 tober, as the winter advanced, very large flocks arrived, and 

 fed chiefly upon the ragweed, and under some large beech 



