southern lowlands. In Sweden its northern range does not
seem to he so extensive, but it is common in the central and
southern parts. It occurs pretty generally, though sparingly,
throughout Finland, excepting in the north, and is. thought
occasionally to winter there. The same may he said of it in
Russia, but it appears to become rare on the eastern slopes
of the Ural mountains, and not to shew itself further in
Siberia than the river Ob*, nor has it been met with beyond
the Talgyche mountains in the Caucasus. In South Russia
it is said to be rare in summer, though a common bird of
double-passage. Yet it would appear to breed in Asia Minor,
and is abundant in some parts of Palestine in winter, disappearing
however in spring. In Greece it remains all the
year round, its numbers receiving a great increase in winter;
but it is not known to cross the Mediterranean towards its
eastern end. In Algeria it breeds plentifully, and is found
also in Morocco, hut the birds which inhabit North-Western
Africa, being somewhat smaller in size and rather brighter
in plumage than their European brethren, have been recognized
by some ornithologists as forming a distinct species,
named by Dr. Cabanis Ligurinus aurantiiventris. Mr.
Dresser, however, after examining a large series of specimens
and availing himself of the experience of the more modern
Mauritanian and Iberian travellers, thinks that this specific
distinction cannot be maintained. It has been observed as a
straggler to Madeira, and both in Portugal and Spain it is
common all the year round, while throughout the rest of
Europe its distribution needs no further remark.
* Pallas says it occurs in Kamchatka, and in the islands to the eastward, but
there is little doubt that he was herein mistaken, and that the bird sent to him
from the former locality was one of the two allied, but yet distinct species inhabiting
Eastern Asia and its adjacent islands, the smaller of which—the
Fringilld' sinica of Linnaeus—was observed by Prof. Radde on the Amoor. Herr
von Kittlitz also, the naturalist of a Russian Expedition, in 1827, to the Pacific,
fell into the same error, stating (Mém. Acad. Petersb. par Sav. étrang. i. p. 241)
that he found F. Moris rather numerous on the coast of Boninsima - an island
between four and five hundred miles east of Japan ; but in the account of his
voyage, published in 1859 (Denkwiirdigk. u.s.w. ii. p. 182), he corrected the
mistake and referred his bird to the F. Jcawarahiba of Temminck, the larger of
the two species above spoken of.
The male has the hill of a dull flesh-colour, darkest at the
tip : the irides hazel: the lores dusky-black; the forehead
golden-green ; the crown of the head, neck, mantle, scapulars
and back, olive-green clouded with hair-brown ; the upper
and least wing-coverts bright golden-green, the outer edge of
the wings gamboge-yellow ; the wing-quills blackish-brown,
tipped with brownish-grey,—the tertials bordered broadly
with hair-brown, the secondaries narrowly with olive-green,
and the primaries with brilliant gamboge-yellow, for the
basal two-thirds of their length; the rump and upper tail-
coverts bright golden-green; the two middle tail-quills
blackish-brown bordered with brownish-greythe rest have
the basal half gamboge-yellow, the terminal part blackish-
brown , edged with brownish-grey : the sides of the head
and ear-coverts ashy-grey mixed with green; the chin,
throat and breast, bright golden-green, clouded with ashy-
grey and passing into gamboge-yellow on the belly ; the vent
white tinged with yellow; the lower tail-coverts straw-
coloured, mixed with white; the sides of the body and
the thighs light brownish-ochreous ; the lower wing-coverts
and the lower surface of the basal half of the tail-quills pale
yellow : legs, toes and claws, pale wood-brown.
The whole length of an adult male is six inches or a little
more; from the carpal joint to the end of the wing, three *
inches and a half: the second, third and fourth primaries
very nearly equal; the fifth an eighth of an inch shorter
than the fourth, and the sixth a quarter of an inch shorter
than the fifth: the tail very decidedly forked. ^
In the female, which is a rather smaller bird, the bill is
pale brown ; the upper plumage generally hair-brown, tinged
only with golden-green on the upper and least wing-coverts
and on the rump; the yellow edging of the ^ primaries and
base of the tail-quills remains, though it is less bright;
the throat, breast and belly, pale brown, the last tinged with
greenish-yellow ; lower tail-coverts dull white.
Young birds in their first plumage are generally of a
light ochraceous-brown with clouded spots of darker-brown
above, and beneath especially, on the throat, breast and belly