120 
G-eneral Notes. 
“ strange Finch,” taken in a swampy place a few miles from town, which 
he was unable to identify with any North American species. It proved to 
be the Amadina rubronigra of India, a species more or less a favorite as a 
cage-bird, and frequently imported by the bird-dealers. It had recently 
moulted, as was shown by a few feathers still not fully grown, and was 
consequently in fresh, unworn plumage, and had the appearance, to my 
correspondent, of a “ wild bird.” It is, of course, beyond the limit of 
probability that it was a natural wanderer from India. 
Dr. Brewer has recently recorded (Proc. Bost.. Soc. Nat. Hist., XX, 
271) the capture, at South Scituate, Mass., “in midwinter,” of a South 
African Finch ( Crithagra butyraced). ei Its plumage was clean and fresh, 
and the bird was in good condition.” Yet Dr. Brewer does not suppose 
it was other than an escaped cage-bird, although it had when taken “ all 
the appearance of a wild bird,” nor does the supposition that it was a 
natural straggler from Africa seem for an instant tenable. 
The European Goldfinch ( Carduelis elegans ) has been repeatedly taken 
in a wild state in Eastern Massachusetts ; so frequently, in fact, that it 
has been conjectured that this hardy species may have become established 
here through fortuitous introduction. It being a common cage-bird, it 
seems probable that numbers may escape each year, while their hardy 
nature would easily enable them to maintain an existence here for a con- 
siderable period. 
Mr. William Brewster informs me that he shot a pair, April 21, 1875, 
the female of which was found to contain eggs that would have been laid 
in a few days. They were very wild, and were not recognized till they 
had been shot. In addition to the many that doubtless escape every year 
from confinement, a considerable number were turned out, Mr. Brewster 
informs me, not long before this date, by the “ Society for the Acclimatiza- 
tion of Foreign Birds.” It is stated that some forty years ago Skylarks 
were turned out on Long Island. Skylarks and other European birds 
were set loose, some years ago, in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, 
but are supposed to have all soon died. It is a matter of record (see 
anted , p. 114) that in 1853 a considerable number of pairs of Skylarks, 
Wood Larks, English Blackbirds, and other Thrushes, Robin-redbreasts, 
and Goldfinches were set at liberty in Greenwood Cemetery, New York, 
and that similar importations have been made to Cincinnati, and elsewhere 
in this country. 
I have elsewhere recorded the capture of the Serin Finch ( Serinus 
meridionalis) in Western Massachusetts in winter, and numerous cases of 
similar character might doubtless be easily cited; the chief interest of 
which lies in the fact of their showing that many of the hardier cage-birds, 
and especially those of the Finch family, are capable of maintaining an 
existence in a wild state for a considerable period in countries remote, and 
differing more or less in climatic and other conditions, from their native 
homes ; and as indicating, furthermore, that if such species, or others of 
