SERIN FINCH. 85 



has restored them to their usual abundance. Small birds, like the Dartford 

 Warbler, which winter north of Centriil Europe, are sometimes almost 

 exterminated in some localities by bad weather. 



Dixon met with this bird in Algeria, and writes as follows : — " We did 

 not meet with this charming little bird until we arrived in the most tropical 

 portion of Algeria — ^in the palm-oases of El Kantara and Biskra. It is a 

 bird that appears to love the richest districts, and we never met with it in 

 the pine- and cedar-forests on the Aur^s. In the oases the birds inhabited 

 the luxuriant gardens, the groves of fig-trees, and were seen amongst the 

 apricot-trees and wealth of shrubs bountifully clothed in the fairest of 

 blooms. But amongst this semitropical verdure the Serin is difficult 

 to see, and you only catch a hasty glimpse of it as it appears on the outer- 

 most branches for a moment and then disappears again. Amongst the 

 date-palms, however, it is very conspicuous. There is little or no under- 

 wood beneath these trees, and the bird perches exclusively upon them. It 

 was seen sitting on the topmost point of the broad leaves, sixty feet 

 from the ground, whence it occasionally took a little fluttering flight 

 into the air to catch an insect from the swarms flitting round the tree-tops. 

 All the Finches in summer-time are more or less insectivorous, and the httle 

 Serin is no exception ; indeed it seems most industrious in its search after 

 insects, not only flitting into the air but occasionally clinging to the stems 

 of the palm trees, as if searching for its food amongst the rugged bark. 

 We repeatedly saw it, too, upon the tops of the walls that divide the Arab 

 gardens ; but it was always rather shy, and after a moment or two's rest 

 flew off to its usual refuge, the tops of the date-palms. Although it 

 must have been its breeding-season (May) , we never heard it utter any 

 song — only its sweet and somewhat plaintive little call-note.'' 



The nest of the Serin, though very loosely made of short slender stalks 

 and roots, held together with thistle-down, spider's web, and bits of wool 

 or cotton, is very carefully and neatly constructed. There is no special 

 lining, except that the proportion of soft material is greater inside than 

 outside. The outside diameter is only about 2| inches, and that of the 

 inside only If inches; the depth is little more than an inch. Naumann 

 says that hair and feathers are used in the lining ; but the nests I have seen 

 have never contained either. The nest is generally built in fruit-trees, but 

 frequently in other small trees and shrubs. Five is the usual number of 

 eggs, but sometimes there are only four. They are on an average smaller 

 than those of the Goldfinch or Siskin, but are indistinguishable from them, 

 being subject to the same variations of colour. The length ranges from 

 •65 to -6 inch, and the breadth from '5 to "45 inch. The ground-colour is 

 very pale bluish green, more or less spotted and blotched and occasionally 

 streaked, chiefly at the large end, with dark reddish-brown overlying spots 

 and pale reddish-brown underlying ones. 



