A History of the Birds of Europe, Not Observed in the British Isles
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MCZ LIBRARY SMClal Goliection \<G^\aoS^ (A- SCARLET BULLFINCH. A HISTORY BIRDS OF EUROPE, NOT OBSERVED IN THE BRITISH ISLES. CHARLES ROBERT BREE, M.D., F.Z.S., Senior Physician to tlie Essex and Colcliester Hospital. Author of "Species Not Transnwtable," "Lower Forms of Life," "An Exposition of Fallacies in the Hypothesis of Mr. Darwin," &c., &c. SECOND EDITION, ENLARGED. VOL. lY. "Join voices all ye Living souls; ye birds That singing up to heaven-gate ascend Bear on your vpings and in your notes His praise." Milton's Pahadise Lost. oLONDON: GEORGE BELL AND SONS, YORK STREET, COYENT GARDEN. M DCCC LXXV. ^^^ \^<^ \ao^^ '^y/ (r)<^, CONTENTS OP THE FOURTH VOLUME. PAGE Scarlet Bullfincli 1 Rosy Bullfinch 9 Desert Trumpeter Bullfincli 13 Crimson-winged Grosbeak 23 Serin Pinch. ... 25 Citril Finch 30 Snow Finch 34 Alpine Serin Finch (no plate) 38 HolboU's Eedpole 40 Eock Sparrow 43 Italian House Sparrow 49 Spanish Sparrow 52 'White-rumped "Woodpecker 56 Lilford's "Woodpecker 60 Middle Spotted "Woodpecker 62 Three-toed "Woodpecker 66 Grey "Woodpecker 69 Sharpe's Green "Woodpecker 74 Blue-cheeked Bee-eater 76 Black- and-"\\^hite Kingfisher 79 Mouse-coloured Swift . 82 Oriental Chimney Swallow 85 Eufous Swallow 88 Crag Swallow 96 Eusset-necked Mghtjar 100 Egyptian Turtle Dove 106 Caucasian Snow Partridge 111 Hazel Grouse . 115 iv CONTENTS. PAGE Spitzbergen Ptarmigan • . • 121 Willow Ptarmigaa 125 131 Pin- tailed Sand Grouse . .. Sand Grouse ........••• 135 Prancolin ............ 139 Greek Partridge 147 Black-winged Pratincole fno plafej ....... 153 EufFed Bustard . 155 Asiatic Golden Plover 160 Social Plover 162 White-tailed Plover . 165 Spur- winged Plover ......... 168 Egyptian Plover . • 171 Asiatic Dotterel .......... 174 179 Mongolian Pinged Plover fno plateJ . „ . BIRDS OF EUROPE, NOT OBSERVED IN THE BRITISH ISLES. GRANIVOR.E. Family FRINGILLID^F. fBonaparie.J Genus Carpodacus. (Kaup.) Generic Cliaracters.—Bill short, conico-convex, and thick at the base, the sides inflated and bulging, tumid and compressed at tip, —longer than that of Pyrrhula. Commissure sinuated, or with a notch near the base. First three primaries longest, and subequal. Tail distinctly furcate. Feet robust; claws well curved. SCARLET BULLFINCH« Carpodacus erytJirinus Carpodacus eryihrinus, Gray. Kaup. Bonaparte. Dubois. Pyrrhula erythrina, Temminck. Bree; ist. edition. Loxia erythrina, Pallas. Gmelin. Eiythrospiza erythrijia, Bonaparte. Pyrrhulinota roscEcolor, rosea ei erythrina, Hodgson. Erythrothorax ruhifrons, Brehm. Loxia cardinalis, BeSEKE NEC LiNN.iUS. " obscura, Gmelin. $ Fringilla flammea, Retzius. " incerta, Risso. Pyrrhula sinaica, MiJHLE; Orn. Griecli. Boicvreuil Cramoisi, Of the French. Brand Roscngimpcl, Of the Germans. VOL. IV. I? — 2 SCARLET BULLFINCH. Specific Characters.—Rump red or ash-coloured; abdomen pure white. The first primary equal in length to the third, and shorter than the second. Length five inches and a half; carpus to tip three inches and a half; expanse of wing ten to eleven inches; the closed wing reaches to tv/o inches and a half of the length of the tail; tarsus nine to ten lines; middle toe seven lines, and its claw three lines; hinder toe four lines, and its claw three lines. Naumann. The BuUfinclies are a beautiful race of birds, and how much soever our own British species is valued for this quality in our eyes, it is perhaps surpassed by the subjects of the present and following notice, which have however been placed by Kaup and modern writers in the genus Carpodacus, a small group of birds characterized, according to the late Mr. Blyth, by having the bill midway between the true Bullfinches and the Linnets, and the males by being more or less tinged with rosy and becoming crimson in the breeding plumage. The females are streaked with brown, and have no yellow in their plumage. The Scarlet Bullfinch inhabits the regions of the arctic circle, in the north of Europe and Asia. It is found in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Russia, and Siberia, more particularly near the Rivers Volga, Samara, Oder, and Selenga. It occurs solitarily in Courland and in Poland; and Naumann especially mentions having found it in the summer of 1816, on Sylt, one of the islands on the west coatt of Jutland. It occurs accidentally in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, and Central Germany, and has been captured at Hesse, on the Rhine. Dea^land mentions that individuals have been shot at Abbe- ville, at Tournai, in the neighbourhood of Milan, and on the Swiss Alps; and Nordmann tells us, in the "Faune Pontique," that it comes regularly in spring into the Botanic Gardens at Odessa, either singly or in pairs, and that it is common in the provinces situated to the east of the Black Sea. It is mentioned by Count Milhle as occurring in Greece, under the name of Pyrrhula sinaica. It occurs in India and China. During the summer it is essentially a northern bird, but in the autumn it migrates southwards. If it stays the winter, it is found more especially in the neighbourhood of dwellings, where it can be sheltered among the shrubs. It is very fond of moist situations, and is frequently found among the bushes on the banks of rivers, lakes, and ponds, where it may be seen on the willows or reeds. In the ''Richesses Ornithologiques du Midi cle la France," by Jaubert and Barthelemy la Pommeraye, there is a very interesting description of this bird, which is an occasional straggler into France, — SCARLET BULLFINCH. 3 and from this I will make some extracts. I do this the more willingly, as their remarks refer to a bird about which much uncer- tainty has existed up to modern days, I mean the FringiUa incerta of Risso. Mr. Dresser, in his "Birds of Europe," maintains that the birds taken in England and baptized F. incerta, are merely hybrids between the Common Linnet and the Grecnfiuch, but that the real F. incerta is the female of Carpodacus erythrinus. Mr. Dresser states that neither Mr. Gould nor myself had alluded to this bird. Mr. D. is, however, mistaken. If he will refer to my book, vol. iii., p. 119, he will find the following note: "FringiUa incerta, Risso, {Chlorospiza incerta, Bonaparte,) is only the young of Pyrrhula erythrina." The young birds being very like the adult females, both have probably passed as P. incerta. "The history of this bird," says M. Jaubert, "is certainly one of the most singular that we have given in this work. Described in 1788 by Gmelin, and after having successively passed from one genus to another, we find it in 1853 perfectly fixed on the one hand with the Bullfinches, of which it has all the characters, and on the other with the Grosbeaks, where the inattention of authors had till these days maintained it. Singular fortune for a type contained in nearly all collections. M. Degland, in the first instance, having discovered a Bullfinch in a young Chlorospiza incerta, constituted it, but not without hesitation, his Pyrrhula incerta (Orn. Eur., t. 11, p. 540), which produced a sharp admonition from Prince Charles Bonaparte. Could there be any reason for M. Degland to claim later a priority so lightly accorded by the Prince in the 'Revue de Zoologie,' 1854, on a question in which the author had only confirmed the existence of a species which I upset definitely some months later, by showing the identity of Chlorospiza incerta, Bonaparte, with Frytlvrospiza erythrina, Bonaparte? I am supported by the following reasons: 1. Between the two birds there does not exist a single distinctive character to separate them. Accidental variations of the beak are of no importance when we compare a series of individuals. 2. The female of the adult Scarlet Bullfinch is identical with that of Chlorosjnza incerta kept in a cage. Their eggs are the same. 3. The young resemble each other. 4. We have seen accidentally the bird assume the green when at liberty, and the red in captivity. 5, The adult Chlorospiza incerta is never seen in the fields; it is the child of our aviaries. 6. Analogy between this phenomenon of captivity and that which takes place among the species which take in the same red colour in confinement. 7. Lastly, the native country of F. incerta is unknown. It is now a decided question." We believe the opinion which was arrived at by M, Jaubert was 4 8GABLET BULLFINCH. die correct one. It lias been held by ornithologists ever since. The omission of the name among my synonymes in the first edition was purely accidental. Dr. Schrenck thinks "that the specimens killed on the Amoor are more splendidly coloured than those from China, the Altai Mountains, and Europe. Those from Kamtschatka are hardly inferior in the brilliancy of the colours. The female from the Amoorland has the well-known dull olive brown plumage tinged with green, particularly on the rump and back, and more so than in the reijresentations of Bonaparte and Schlegel. The Scarlet Bullfinch is sjDread over the whole of Siberia to Kamtschatka, as recorded by Gmelin, Stiller, Pallas, Kittlitz, and Middendorfi*, also appears in the Amoorland, and there nests in the thick willow plots of the lower and often bog islands of the Amoor River. It breeds there the beginning of June." Naumann has given a very complete account of the bird, from which I have gathered the following:—"For several years, in the early spring, a pair of these birds were seen near Breslau, among the willows and reeds of a swampy district. The male and female were always near together, and the former sung gaily. They were both killed at a single shot, but the female was not found. The male is now in the museum at Berlin. Later another pair were also shot.