SERIX FINCH. 
101 
weather, and sings continually from the tops of the 
trees, and delights especially in flying from one to the 
other, sometimes soaring and sometimes fluttering aloft, 
and flying straight down again like the Tree Pipit. 
In its usual flight it resembles the Siskin, moving 
quickly from place to place, and uttering its peculiar 
note, which has been compared to that of the Siskin, 
the Goldfinch, and Canary-bird. The song has much 
variation, and may be heard at the breeding-place all 
day long, and from March till far into August. It is 
a favourite cage-bird, assorting by choice with Siskins, 
Goldfinches, and Canaries, and it may, like these birds, 
be taught many performances. 
Like other Finches, the Serin feeds on seeds, es- 
pecially those grown in gardens, and it prefers the 
oleaginous to the farinaceous. Naumann mentions par- 
ticularly cabbage, hemp, and poppy, rape, turnip, 
radish, and lettuce seed, for which it lays contributions 
on the cultivator, and for which it is doubtless often 
shot and trapped. The wild seeds which it seems to 
prefer, are dandelion, hawk cabbage, chicory, the 
grasses, and even, v/hen driven to it, oats. In autumn 
it seeks its food among the alders and birches. 
Its nest is much more frequently found on fruit 
and walnut-trees than on beech, oak, or alder. It is 
in position more like the nest of the Goldfinch than 
the Linnet, placed in a forked bough, not very high, 
or in the lowest branches; in bushes and dwarf fruit 
trees, but not in low bushes. The nest is sometimes 
like that of the Goldfinch, at others more like the 
Greenfinches, but smaller, very narrow, rounded, and 
lined with more skill than the latter. It is formed of 
small roots, woven together with old twigs, which are 
however, sometimes wanting. The inside is tolerably 
VOL. III. 
