5512 Birds. 



Lieut. Irby mentions Emberiza schoeniclus as " common, and seen 

 throughout the year." 



FringillidcB. 



The house sparrow (Fringilla domeslica), which may be seen every- 

 where in England, from the crowded streets of cities to the most 

 remote farm-house, is an inhabitant of the Crimea, where I compared 

 a couple of specimens. The Russian soldiers on the north side, 

 during the spring of 1856, had a great number of small boxes erected 

 on long poles in their batteries and about other places, for the accom- 

 modation, as I supposed, of this social bird, as I never saw any other 

 go into them ; but I never made out whether these boxes were for 

 catching the young, or merely as accommodation for the sparrow, put 

 up from disinterested motives. 



Two chaffinches (Fringilla ccelebs) were shot from a congre- 

 gation of small birds in mid-winter, which I immediately examined : 

 I also saw this bird in May, and Dr. W. Carte brought home a 

 specimen. 



In company with a flock of yellowhammers, I shot a brambling 

 (Fringilla monti fringilla), on the 3rd of January; also another the 

 next day, which was skinned and preserved. 



The greenfinch (Fringilla chloris) was procured by Dr. W. Carte 

 and myself during winter. 



On Christmas day I saw a hawfinch (Fringilla coccothr amies), 

 which had been killed a day or two, and, during the cold weather of 

 January, procured one myself, which I had some difficulty in ap- 

 proaching. 



Of the division Carduelis, the two well-known British species were 

 obtained, the goldfinch (Carduelis elegans), by Dr. W. Carte in 

 January, and myself in the middle of April, and the siskin (Carduelis 

 spinus) during winter and spring, till after the middle of May ; so we 

 may be led to suppose that both breed in the southern part of the 

 Crimea, 



On the 22nd of April I observed a number of what I took for a 

 species of redpole, with the pink breast showing on some of them. 



I shot two females of the common linnet (Fringilla cannabina) 

 on the 5th of January, one of which came to England, and is 

 now among my other specimens of birds from the Crimea and 

 Bulgaria, between sixty and seventy, in the Museum of the Royal 

 Artillery Institution at Woolwich, where any one is at liberty to 

 examine them. 



