THE SERIN. 59 
at the season of migration, join a stream of migrants, which would land them on 
our shores. 
According to Naumann, the Serin prefers the hilly, cultivated districts to the 
plains, chiefly frequenting orchards, plantations, avenues of fruit- and walnut-trees, 
vineyards, and even gardens in the middle of villages, or close to houses. Dixon, 
who met with it in Algeria, observes (Jottings about Birds, p. 59)—‘‘It is widely 
distributed, not only in the mountain districts, but in the more northern oases.’ 
Also, in his notes quoted by Seebohm (British Birds, Vol. II, p. 85)—‘‘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 Aurés. 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 beautifully clothed in the fairest of blooms. But amongst this semi- 
tropical verdure, the Serin is difficult to see, and you only catch a hasty glimpse 
of it as it appears on the outermost branches for a moment and then disappears 
again. 
Amongst the date-palms, however, it is very conspicuous. ‘There is little or 
no underwood 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 little 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.” 
The nest is placed either in a fruit-tree, or some other tree of moderate height, 
a shrub, or bush; it is loosely but neatly constructed of bents and roots, compacted 
together with vegetable down, wool, and spiders’ cocoons, or lichen and grey moss, 
and is softly lined with similar materials. The eggs number from four to five, 
usually five, and chiefly differ from those of the Siskin, or Goldfinch, in their 
smaller size, being very pale green, marked with dark reddish-brown blotches, spots, 
and sometimes lines, and with underlying sienna-reddish spots; most specimens 
are principally marked at the larger end. 
The food of the Serin consists chiefly of small seeds, and it is said to give 
the preference to those of an oily nature: when rearing its young, however, as is 
the case with other Finches in a wild state, various small insects are also eaten, 
and doubtless leaves and unripe seeds of weeds. 
