84 BRITISH BIRDS. 



principally in the mountains, and having its numbers largely increased 

 during winter by migrants from the north. Great numbers winter in 

 Palestine and Egypt ; and in the west of North Africa it not only winters 

 in considerable numbers, but a few remain to breed. 



There seems to be no account of the habits of the Serin except that of 

 the great German ornithologist, Naumann ; and I translate the following 

 from his ' Birds of Germany : '—" It prefers to live in hilly cultivated 

 districts, and is much rarer in the plains. It takes up its quarters chiefly 

 in the orchards, in plantations, or avenues of fruit- and walnut-trees, in 

 vineyards, .... and even in gardens in the middle of villages or close by 



houses The male is most restless and joyous in fine spring weather j 



he calls and sings continually from the tops of the trees, and delights to 

 bound from one to the other in singular flight, sometimes hovering or 

 rising and falling with trembling wings. His usual flight resembles that 

 of the Siskin and similar birds and is very rapid ; it would have nothing 

 extraordinary about it if the birds did not attract attention by their peculiar 



voice during flight Its song is very agreeable, clear as a bell, .... 



more like that of the Siskin than that of the Canary, with which it has 

 been compared. When singing it is always perched high on the topmost 



spray of the tree or on a high branch It not only sings on the wing, 



as described, but sometimes springs from the top of a tree like a Tree- 

 Pipit, almost perpendicularly, singing, then descends and continues its 



song on the same or a neighbouring spray It feeds, like its congeners, 



on small seeds of various plants, especially those cultivated in gardens, or 

 such as grow wild in vineyards and on the roadside, chiefly such as are 

 oleaginous It shells all the seeds, and rejects the husks." 



When I was in Dresden with Mr. Sclater and Mr. Forbes, we found the 

 Serin very common in the Zoological Gardens outside the town. One 

 of these little birds was singing from almost every clump of trees. It is a 

 charming, delicate, little song, very much like that of the Siskin, but 

 richer and more varied. Compared with the song of a Canary or a 

 Nightingale, it might be called weak and monotonous ; but I was 

 charmed with its clearness and richness. The call-note is not unlike that 

 of the Canary, and resembles the word sweet. Henke reintroduced me 

 to the Serin in the charming little village where he lives in Saxon 

 Switzerland, and took me to an orchard where he showed me a pair 

 of birds busily engaged in building a nest on the branch of a pear-tree. 

 He told me that it was only during the last twenty years that the Serin 

 had become common near Dresden. Other ornithologists have noticed the 

 recent increase in the numbers of this species in various localities. This is 

 probably to be explained by supposing that previously the numbers had 

 been very much lessened by an unusually hard winter or a heavy and 

 sudden fall of snow, and that it has taken years before the natural increase 



