72 Dr. Heineken on Fringilla Canaria, Sfc. 



that during the pairing season this is very common. Each flock hsis its own 

 song, and from individuals in the same garden differing coiisiderably, I 

 suspect that of each nest varies more or less. After the breeding season 

 they flock along with linnets, goldfinches, &c. and are then seldom seen 

 in gardens. The moult takes place in August and September. An old 

 bird caught and put into a cage will sometimes sing almost immediately, 

 but seldom lives longer than the second year in confinement. The young 

 from the nest are diflScult to rear, dying generally at the first moult. 

 They cross readily with the domesticated variety, and the progeny are 

 larger, stronger, better breeders, and, to my taste, better songsters^also 

 than the latter ; but a pure wild song from an island Canary at liberty, in 

 full throat, and in a part of the country so distant from the haunts of 

 men that it is quite unsophisticated, is unequalled, in its kind, by any 

 thing I have ever heard in the way of bird-music. 



In the 12th Edition of Linnaeus (Holmiae, 1766.) Vol. I. p. 321, 1 find, 

 " Fringilla butyracea. 



F. virens, superciliis pectore abdomineque flavis, remigibus primori- 

 bus margine exteriore albis. — Chloris indica, Edw. av. 84, t. 84. Briss. 

 av. 3, p. 195. 



Habitat in Madera. 



Similis Loxiae butyraceae, sed rostrum minus," 

 and as it appears to me to be clearly the same bird, although I acknow- 

 ledge that I should not by choice call ours " virens," I have adopted it as 

 a synonym, to the exclusion of his Fring. Canaria, and its numerous 

 progeny, which must be spurious if ours be true. The reasons for ven- 

 turing on such a liberty are, that " virens" is not less applicable to it, than 

 *' grisea" at the next page is to Fring. Petronia, or " testacea" a little 

 further forwards to Motacilla Atricapilla; that in other respects his 

 description answers precisely ; that he gives " ilfarfera" as its sole and 

 decided habitat ; that we have no other bird either at all approaching to 

 green,* or answering in the most distant manner to his description ; and 



* The Fring. Chloris is only blown to us occasionally and accidentally, and 

 then only by twos and threes, and is never known to remain or build on the 

 island. Two which a friend tried to rear died, and in the course of several 

 years I have met with only one siiecinicn. Were I to enumerate all the birds 

 common in Europe which iire sei'U but seldom, if over, here, a tolerably long 



