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breed south of lat. 59° N., and in Eastern Scandinavia not south of lat. 67° N. (Wallengren, in 

 'Naumannia,' 1855, p. 136)." 



We can ourselves scarcely believe in the authenticity of the above-mentioned nest, and it 

 would appear that the present species is only a winter visitant to Great Britain. Messrs. Gray 

 and Anderson, in their ' Birds of Ayrshire and Wigtownshire,' state that it is " a regular winter 

 visitant, but only in small numbers, except in unusually severe weather. It then appears at farm- 

 steadings, mixing with Sparrows, Chaffinches, Yellow-Ammers, and Green Linnets." All over 

 England it is more or less common in winter. Mr. J. H. Gumey, jun., sends us the following 

 note: — "Mr. Hogg says that they are rare in south-east Durham (Zool. p. 1062), but they were 

 extremely numerous at Greatham in the winter of 1866-67, and, what was singular, they seemed 

 to be all males. I saw one as late as April 6th : it was a dull-coloured specimen ; but on the 

 18th of March I had seen a splendid male bird, with a head as black as a Bullfinch's, by far the 

 finest one I ever saw wild." In the southern counties of England we have ourselves found it 

 abundant in some winters, particularly in beech-woods. In the south-western counties, however, 

 it would seem to be less plentiful ; for Mr. J. Brooking Rowe says that it is not common in Devon, 

 and Mr. Eodd tells us that it only occurs in Cornwall in severe weather. Thompson says that it 

 is a winter visitant to Ireland ; but, as will be seen from the note sent to us by Mr. Gatcombe, it 

 is sometimes found there in immense numbers ; and there can be no doubt that the mildness or 

 severity of the season influences in a great measure the migration of the Brambling to this 

 country. 



Mr. Collett, in his ' Birds of Norway,' writes as follows : — " Along the fells it is common in 

 all subalpine conifer-woods and in the birch-region on the fells, and is found breeding in small 

 colonies on most of the more elevated forest-regions. Along the west coast and northwards up 

 to the Kussian frontier it breeds in the birch-woods down to the sea. On the lowlands it is most 

 numerously found during the migrations ; and occasional birds winter with us, though sometimes, 

 as at Christiania in 1863-64, in large flocks." Messrs. F. and P. Godman, who collected near 

 Bodo, state : — " This bird, which we found extremely local in the country that we explored, 

 arrived on May 1 3th. There were two places, both on the side of a mountain running north-west 

 and south-east, with a lake at its foot, where they were not uncommon ; and in these two localities 

 we found several nests." In Sweden, according to Nilsson, it passes the summer in the north 

 only, being found in the southern portion of the country during its spring and autumn migrations, 

 and occasionally during the winter. In April and May they return from the south in families or 

 flocks ; and early in June they have paired and scattered in the forest on the fell-sides in Norway, 

 Lapland, and Norrland. Their head quarters are the small birch-woods above the conifer-forests. 

 Here they are found in countless numbers, and utter their harsh note from almost every tree and 

 bush ; consequently large numbers breed near together. Summerfeldt found it on the Varanger 

 Fiord in summer; and Wheelwright, in his ' Spring and Summer in Lapland,' says: — "It was 

 certainly the commonest of all the small birds in our forests during the summer, and the flocks 

 which we used to see on the bare patches of cultivated land early in May (when they first 

 arrived) were past all belief. Every forest was filled with them, and their monotonous call-note, 

 cree, cree, was heard from every tree." In Finland it is abundant, arriving early in the spring, 

 remaining in the northern parts of the country to breed, and leaving in flocks late in the autumn. 



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