COL. CAMPBELL ON DISTRIBUTION OF PERTHSHIRE BIRDS. I 05 
visitors, and I made the following notes regarding its occurrence in 
India;—“Very common in the N.W. Provinces and Punjab in the 
cold weather. I found it breeding in Cashmere in May. I also saw 
it a long way north of Leh, in Ladakh, in June, 1865. It arrives in 
the Peshawur Valley about the beginning of July. Seen in Nowshera, 
6th July, 1866.” I can assure you that no arrival gave me greater 
pleasure, when living in the sweltering plains of India, than did that 
of the first swallow, a sure sign of the approaching cold weather, just 
as here we look forward to its coming as the harbinger of summer. 
In 1893 I saw my first swallow in Rome on 14th February, this year 
I came across him at Toledo, in Spain, on i ith March, but did not 
see my friend in Perth till 23rd April, and this, I think, is about the 
usual date of arrival here. The iith October is the latest date on 
which I have seen the Swallow in Perth. 
The Martin {C/ieh'don iirhica) is, according to Jerdon, very rare 
in India, but there is a species, called by him Ch. caslwiirieusis^ 
which is, I believe, identical, or nearly so. I remember when cross¬ 
ing the Pir Punjab—the range of hills which separates the plains of 
the Punjab from the Cashmere Valley—on the 25th April, 1864, 
coming across a colony of these birds building their nests in the 
window corners of an old caravanserai or rest-house, though how they 
got the mud to construct them was a mystery, as we were 11,000 feet 
above sea-level, the whole surrounding country was covered with 
snow, and it was freezing hard ! 
Our Common Sand Martin {Cotile riparia) is found skimming 
over the surface of the Ganges, at Cawnpore, in much the same way 
as we see it on the Tay or Earn, but it does not breed in India, 
though it does in Afghanistan and over the whole of Northern 
Europe and Asia. 
Fringillid^e. —That beautiful bird, the Gold Finch {Carduelis 
elegans) is, I am sorry to say, one of our rarest birds. I have never 
seen it in Perthshire, and only once in Scotland—near Nairn, in 
August, 1891. In the south and west of Ireland, where thistles, 
its favourite food, are allowed to grow abundantly, it is very common, 
and I do not think I ever saw so many as in and about Tipperary, 
nearly every cottage having a caged Gold Finch at its door. 
The Siskin {Chrysomitris spinus) is a regular resident in the 
Highlands, breeding there in tall Scotch firs where the nest is very 
difficult to find, but there are large accessions to their numbers in 
autumn and winter, numerous flocks coming over from Norway and 
Sweden. 
The Green Finch {Ligurinus chloris), one of our commonest 
birds, has a very wide distribution throughout Europe, and, Yarrell 
tells us, it is found in the island of Bonin, 500 miles east of Japan. 
