304 
CHAFFINCH. 
or characterize the barks of those in the vicinity, 
as to be of very difficult detection. The inside 
is lined with equal care with hair or feathers. 
In geographical distribution, this bird is scarcely 
so extended as some others of our FringMida. 
It is generally spread over Europe. Mr Yarrell 
mentions its occurrence in Northern Africa, and 
on the authority of Mr Dewar states, that it was 
met with in the Azores. We have no trace of it 
on the Asiatic continent. 
In the adult male, the forehead is clear bluish 
black, the crown, nape, and sides of the neck, 
grayish blue, and on these parts during winter 
having the feathers tipped with tawny, so as to 
give a brownish tinge over the whole ; back 
chestnut brown, margined during winter with 
yellowish gray ; rump and upper tail coverts deep 
sulphur yellow ; quills brownish black, edged 
with yellowish ; greater coverts black, tipped 
with white, and forming a very distinct bar 
across the wing, scapulars white, also conspicu- 
ously seen ; tail, with the centre feathers, greenish 
gray, the others black, the two exterior tipped on' 
the inner webs with white ; the throat, cheeks, 
breast, belly, and flanks, tinted with purple ; vent 
and under tail coverts pure white. The female 
is more soberly dressed. 
The next genus we have to notice, is Emberiza, 
or Buntings, containing a good many subordinate 
forms which have been placed as sub-genera. In 
the British Fauna, what has hitherto been looked 
