6 8GABLET BULLFINCH. 



Salvador! ("Fauna cl'Italla") writes: — "This species is very rare in 

 Italy. It is sometimes found in Liguria, Venetia, Nizzardo, and 

 Lombardy. I believe it lias never been found in Rome, in Southern 

 Italy, or in Tuscany. It does not appear to me that the individual 

 recorded by Bruscoli (Acts of Italian Society, 1841, p. 874,) belongs 

 to this species, though Temminck, Degland, and Malherbe say that 

 it is found in Sicily, but they doubt if it has ever been captured 

 there. According to Schembri, two individuals have been taken in 

 Malta. I believe that adult males have never been taken in Italy, 

 but always young birds, unless the individual taken in the mountains 

 of Ortu, in Lombardy, December, 1842, was an adult. This bird was 

 announced by Balsamo Crivelli under the name of Pyrrhula erythrina. 

 It is a native of Northern Asia, from whence it emigrates in great 

 numbers to India. It is also common in European Russia. De Filippi 

 found it common in Persia. There is no longer any doubt that F. 

 incerta, Risso, is a variety of this species, which was proved by 

 rearing young birds. I have seen several individuals sufficiently 

 modified to be thought distinct, two of them kept by Segnor de 

 Negri in Geneva. One of these had been in a cage for five years, 

 and only in the third year had taken the yellow, almost golden 

 colour on the front of the neck and top of the head." 



Doderlein says of this bird: — "This species has been known up to 

 this time as C. incertus. It is very rare in Sicily. It was first called 

 Fringilla olivacea by Rafinesque, when he saw it in the neighbour- 

 hood of Palermo in 1810, which was its first name. Risso observed 

 it after in the neighbourhood, and called it F. incerta in 1826. 

 Later still it was noticed by Professor Calvi and the Marquis of 

 Dnrazzo near Geneva, by Verany at Nice, by P. Roux at Marseilles, 

 and by Malherbe in the Pyrenees, and contemporaneously it was 

 described and figured by Bonaparte in his splendid work the 'Fauna 

 Italica.' More recently, in March, 1835, other individuals were taken 

 at Lavagno, (Perini), and in October, 1846, at Tamai, in Friuli; a 

 specimen was kept alive for many years by Cantarini, and by Nardo 

 at Venice. Perini announces the capture of two individuals, adult 

 females, one in 1850 in the mountains of Valdagno, and another in 



1856 in the Veronese territory, to which he adds a third taken in 



1857 at Calcinati, in Bergamasco. Two individuals were procured 

 alive in 1864 by Segnor Negri at Geneva. It appears then that 

 this bird must be ranked among the birds of Italy and Sicily." 



The Scarlet Bullfinch lives upon various kinds of seeds, more 

 especially, according to Dubois, those of an oily nature, as well as 

 those of the elm or alder. Naumann also suggests that it feeds upon 



