Greenfinch

Greenfinch (Ger. Grünfink), or Green Linnet, as it is very often called, a common European bird, the Fringilla chloris of Linnaeus, ranked by many systematists with one section of hawfinches, Coccothraustes, but apparently more nearly allied to the other section Hesperiphona, and perhaps justifiably deemed the type of a distinct genus, to which the name Chloris or Ligurinus has been applied. The cock, in his plumage of yellowish-green and yellow is one of the most finely coloured of common English birds, but he is rather heavily built, and his song is hardly commended. The hen is much less brightly tinted. Throughout Britain, as a rule, this species is one of the most plentiful birds, and is found at all seasons of the year. It pervades almost the whole of Europe, and in Asia reaches the river Ob. It visits Palestine, but is unknown in Egypt. It is, however, abundant in Mauritania, whence specimens are so brightly coloured that they have been deemed to form a distinct species, the Ligurinus aurantiiventris of Dr Cabanis, but that view is now generally abandoned. In the north-east of Asia and its adjacent islands occur two allied species—the Fringilla sinica of Linnaeus and the F. kawarahiba of Temminck.

(A. N.)

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