Removal of Citril Finch from the British & Irish List
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Removal of Citril Finch from the British & Irish List Alan Knox, on behalf of the British Ornithologists' Union Records Committee n 29th January 1904, J. Quinton, a local birdcatcher, caught a small Ofinch on the Denes at Caistor (now Caister), just north of Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, The bird, subsequently identified as a Citril Finch Serinus citrinelk, was kept alive for a few days. It was then prepared as a mounted specimen by T. E. Gunn of Norwich, one of the best-known taxidermists of the period. E. C. Saunders, who was in possession of the bird for a short time, told the ornithologist J. H. Gurney about it (Gurney 1905). Gurney saw the specimen himself and was 'responsible for its identification'. This could mean that it was he who identified it or, more likely, that he confirmed the identification to his own satisfaction. Gurney noted that the bird had been 'an adult female in good feather'. Shortly after stuffing, die specimen passed to the collection of Sir Vauncey Harpur Crewe and, on the dispersal of that collec tion, the bird was purchased and presented to the Booth Museum in Brighton, where it remains (plate 123; case no. 460, reg. no. 208113; Boodi & Griffith 1927). The species was admitted to the British List by Howard Saunders on the basis of Gurney's claim (Saunders 1907). No published description, photograph or biometrics of the bird have been located, nor is there any record of the specimen having been examined criti cally since Gurney's time. Citril Finch remained on the British & Irish List (in category B) on the basis of the Great Yarmouth specimen alone. The record was recently reassessed as part of an ongoing review of some older records and of species currendy in category B in particular. At die same time as the Committee was gathering information before examining the skin, Lee Evans reported to me (verbally) that he had seen recent photographs of the bird and that it did not appear to be a Citril Finch. Shortly afterwards, I received from Dr Gerald Legg at the Booth Museum some black-and-white \ISrit. Dink UT. 171-173. (Vlnhcr IWH] 47 I 472 Removal ofdtril Finch from the British & Irish list 123. Cape (or Yellow-crowned) Canary Serinus canicollis from near Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, in January 1904, previously identified as a Citril Finch S. cikmella and the sole British record of the latter species (A. G. Knox) photographs which confirmed Lee Evans's suspicions. I visited Brighton and tentatively identified the skin as that of a Cape (or Yellow-crowned) Canary S. canicollis, and was able to verify this when I took the specimen to The Natural History Museum at Tring, where it was further identified as a male (based on plumage characters) of the canicollis group of subspecies. Description Forecrown, centre of throat, breast, belly, ently with droppings. Bill stout, with curved flanks and undertail-coverts bright green, vent culmen and tomia and heavy mandible. whitish; sides of diroat and neck, ear-coverts, hindcrown and nape grey, mixed with green on back and scapulars; rump and uppertail- Measurements coverts bright green; wing and tail feathers Wing 76 mm; tail 54 mm, shallowly forked, blackish with broad green feather edges; with shortest tail feather 7 mm shorter than underside of tail greyish, washed strongly with longest; bill 8.5 mm to feathering, 11.2 mm to green. Tips of tail feathers lightly soiled, appar skull, 6.5 mm deep, 5.5 mm wide at base. Discussion The absence of clear wing-bars, die heavy, bulging bill, the greenish underside to the tail, and the bill and tail biometrics rule out Citril Finch and confirm the identification of the bird as Cape Canary; females are less brightly coloured and have brownish backs and streaked crowns. Cape Canary and Citril Finch are part of a superspecies which also con tains die Island Canary S. canaria and the European Serin S. serinus (Hall & Moreau 1970). Superficially, some races of Cape Canary are ratiier similar to Citril Finch, and confusion is perhaps understandable. The most obvious dis tinguishing features are the former's heavy, bulging bill and the latter's clearer wing-bars. Some races of Cape Canary have well-marked wing-bars, but these races do not have clear grey 'shawls'. At an earlier stage, die Great Yarmoudi 'Citril Finch' was in a case with Removal qfCitril Finch from the British & Irish List 473 some other birds at the Booth Museum. The possibility of specimens being switched by mistake was investigated and ruled out by Jeremy Adams at the Museum. There are no contemporary descriptions or measurements of die Great Yarmouth bird to indicate that the finch trapped in 1904 was different from the specimen now under consideration, apart from the original identifi cation as a female. Furthermore, the likelihood of a Cape Canary being mis taken for a Citril Finch is fairly high. Cape Canaries were in demand as cage birds in Britain in the 1880s, and one was caught at Brighton Racecourse in 1886 ('Grey-necked Serin', see Booth & Griffith 1927: 270). The species is not considered to be a likely candidate for natural vagrancy to Britain. Following the reidentification of the specimen, the record is clearly no longer acceptable, and the species has been deleted from the British & Irish List (BOU in press). There are very few records of Citril Finches as vagrants at any great distance from their known breeding areas. It may be an opportune time for the reassessment of some of the other, particularly older, occurrences elsewhere in Europe. Acknowledgments I am grateful for the assistance of Dr Gerald Legg and Jeremy Adams at the Booth Museum dur ing the reconsideration of this record, to The Natural History Museum for access to the collections and library at Tring, and to Lee Evans for his initial warning that all might not be as claimed. I. K. Dawson, R. A. Hume, T. P. Inskipp, J. H. Marchant and Dr D. T. Parkin pro vided useful comments on the manuscript. Summary Citril Finch Sennits atrinella was on the British & Irish List on the basis of a single specimen from near Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, in January 1904. The specimen, now at die Booth Museum in Brighton, has been reidenofied as a Cape (or Yellow-crowned) Canary S. amkollis. The record is clearly no longer acceptable and Citril Finch has been deleted from the British & Irish List. References BOOTH, E. T., & GRIFFITH, A. F. 1927. Catalogue of Cases of Birds in the Dyke Road Museum, Brighton. 5th edn. Brighton. BOU. In press. Records Committee: twenty-first report (May 1994). Ibis 136 (October). GURNEYJ. H. 1905. Ornithological notes from Norfolk, 1904. Zoologist (i905): 85-100. HAU, B. P., & MOREAU, R. E. 1970. An Atlas ofSpedaiwn in African Passerine Birds. London. SAUNDERS, H. 1907. Additions to the List of British birds since 1899. Brit. Birds 1: 4-16. Dr Alan G. Knox, Buckinghamshire County Museum, Tring Road, Halton, Buckinghamshire HP22 5PJ .