174 BIRDS 



Mr Edgar Stead (191 6) says: "I have never seen a Siskin in Canter- 

 bury." 



On the other hand Mr W. W. Smith informed me in April, 1919, 

 that these birds are wild about New Plymouth. Mr Smith is one of 

 the most careful and observant naturalists in New Zealand, and it is 

 most unlikely that he has made any mistake about this. These birds 

 may be the progeny of those already referred to, or they may be 

 descended from other introduced birds, for dealers in all the centres 

 continually import siskins, along with canaries. 



The species occasionally nests in Britain, but is mostly a winter 

 visitor, usually nesting in Norway, Mid-Sweden and Russia. 



* Greenfinch {Ligurinus chloris) 



The Nelson Society introduced five greenfinches in 1862, but 

 kept no further record of them. 

 Mr J. Drummond (1907) says: 



the first greenfinches about which I have been able to secure any informa- 

 tion, were liberated in Christchurch in 1863, where a pair were purchased 

 at auction for five guineas. They soon nested, but the only occupant at 

 first was one little greenfinch. Before the warm summer days had passed, 

 however, a second family of five was reared, and in the following winter 

 a flock of eight was seen daily. In the next year, late in the autumn, more 

 than twenty were flushed from a little patch of chickweed, and it was not 

 long before the birds had spread so widely that their note became a well- 

 known sound in Canterbury. 



In another paper he gives the date of the introduction into Canterbury 

 as 1866, but there is no record in the Society's reports. 



The Auckland Society liberated several in 1865; 18 in 1867, and 

 33 in 1868, and in that year "considered them to be thoroughly 

 acclimatized." 



The Otago Society liberated eight in 1868. 



The bird is now particularly abundant in all the settled parts of 

 the country, and is most destructive to the ripening grain crops. It 

 is also most destructive to fruit in certain fruit-growing districts, 

 especially in Central Otago. Mr G. Howes in a note on "Fruit 

 Destruction by small Birds in Central Otago" (Trans. N.Z. Inst. 

 vol. xxxviii, p. 604) says that green linnets attacked the apricots when 

 the fruit was forming, the cherries while in flower, and later in the 

 season the peaches and plums. It was to combat the serious pest to 

 orchards which these and other small birds had become, that the 

 small brown owl (Athene noctua) was introduced, and the result has 

 been a great diminution in the numbers of fruit-eating birds. 



The late Mr T. H. Potts recorded that in winter it feeds largely 



