546 FRINGILLID&. 
Mr. Eyton says it is common in Shropshire, mostly in com- 
pany with the Little Redpole; 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 Aviwm Precipuarium, &c. 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. LHarly in Oc- 
tober, as the winter advanced, very large flocks arrived, and 
fed chiefly upon the ragweed, and under some large beech 
