88 BRITISH BIRDS. 



Afghanistan, the North-west Himalayas, and Turkestan. A variety of the 

 Goldfinch having the throat white has been obtained at Pesth, and has 

 been described under the name of C. albogularis ; but further information 

 is necessary to prove that this variation is constant. 



Although this charming little bird loves to dWeU in the richest parts of 

 the country, it is most common on those little pieces of waste land which, 

 in spite of " high farming," are still left in their primeval state to grow 

 thistles and docks and other rank weeds in abundance. The Goldfinch is 

 an attendant upon the slovenly farmer who does not make use of his " odd 

 corners " and is not very careful about his hedgerows ; but on those farms 

 where scarcely a weed is left to grow the bird is rarely seen. It does not 

 affect the deep woods like some Pinches, nor does it frequent the pine- and 

 fir-woods. It may often be seen in country orchards, and appears to 

 have a partiality for the neighbourhood of houses, and near them it 

 most commonly builds its nest. It is a very active little bird, almost as 

 much so as a Titmouse or a Willow- Wren. 



Dixon made the following notes on this bird : — " The Goldfinch is one 

 of the commonest and most widely spread birds in Algeria. It haunts the 

 palm-studded oases, the orange-groves, fig- and prickly-pear gardens, even 

 on the borders of the Great Desert, just as much as the luxuriant forest 

 country of the Aur^s. It is not, however, a bird of the wilderness ; it 

 inhabits the cultivated districts, especially the Arab gardens, building its 

 nest in their fruit-trees and warbling incessantly from the sprays of bloom. 

 I never in any place saw the Goldfinch so common as at Oued Taga, the 

 mountain home of the Kaid of the Aur^s, lying at an elevation of probably 

 4000 feet above the sea. The gardens at this Arab settlement were full 

 of them. I often counted three or four in the same tree, and the air was 

 made resonant with their charming song. They were not at all shy ; the 

 Arab never molests them ; and they breed in his apple-trees in abundance. 

 I often saw them upon the ground, and searching the twigs and branches 

 of the trees as if looking for insects, which probably form their staple food 

 in the summer months. In the oases the Goldfinch does not appear to 

 affect the palm trees like the Serin Pinch, but is especially fond of the 

 luxuriant gardens gay with flowers and literally buried in an exuberance 

 of greenest foliage. Here they nest in the apricot- and fig-trees ; and at 

 El Kantara in May a pair were making their neat little home in a fork of a 

 lemon-tree almost within arm^s length of the windows of the ' Hotel d^El 

 Kantara,' as the tiny little Prench caravanserai is ambitiously named.'^ 



The song of the Goldfinch is almost as loud and sweet as that of the 

 Linnet, and is commenced almost before the winter is over, being some- 

 times heard as early as the beginning of March, and it will continue 

 through the summer (in the latter part less frequently) till the moulting- 

 season in August. The ordinary call-note of this bird is a sharp and 



