SISKIN. 



99 



flanks and under coverts of the tail are tinged with yellow, 

 and have dark shaft-streaks. The spurious winglet is dusky, 

 the lesser coverts of the wings the same, tipped with olive : 

 the greater coverts are dusky, bordered with yellowish green : 

 the quill-feathers dusky, with the basal part and edges yellow, 

 the secondaries and tertials have olive edges. The two mid- 

 dle tail-feathers are dusky, the rest are yellow, with dusky 

 tips and shafts. The beak is flesh-colour at the base, and 

 dusky at the tip : the legs and feet are brownish flesh-colour : 

 the iris dark brown. 



After the autumnal moult, the head and throat have dirty 

 white edges to their black feathers, and the whole plumage 

 appears mealy from the same cause. In young males the 

 chin is white, and does not, at least in confinement, show 

 any of the black feathers that distinguish that part in ma- 

 turity, until after they are two years of age. In very old 

 specimens, according to Bechstein, the whole breast becomes 

 black. 



Young birds of this species, before their nestling feathers 

 appear, are covered with black down. 



In the female the head is pale dusky olive, with the centres 

 of the feathers darker. The rest of her upper plumage is 

 brownish olive, mottled with black : her cheeks are pale 

 brown : her throat, breast, flanks, and under coverts of the 

 tail are white with dark shaft-streaks, the middle of the belly 

 plain bluish white : her wings are as in the male, but the 

 yellow much paler; and in her tail-feathers the dusky en- 

 croaches nearly to their base : eye-streak and sides of the 

 head very pale yellow : beak and legs as in the male. 



The egg figured in the plate is from the one produced by 

 the above-mentioned pair. 



H 2 



