OX THE MEALY LINNET. 461 



when thus in search of sustenance have been noted by all who have written on 

 them. 



It is in the adaptation to cling on pensile twigs, Fir-cones, and the like, that the 

 Redpoles structurally differ somewhat from the true Linnets ; and they have the bill 

 rather more drawn out at the point, insomuch that our common species has been 

 ranked as a Siskin in Carduelis. The males acquire the shining crimson on the 

 crown at the first moult, but the rosy colour on the breast (except merely a trace 

 of it in a few specimens) not before the second, and it is not fully developed till 

 the third. Females also exhibit more or less of this colouring, but it is in general 

 quite wanting in the sex, though the crown, after shedding the nestling garb, is 

 of a saffron tint. Their seasonal changes have been before adverted to. 



Of the two British races, one is a constant resident, migrating seasonally 

 within the limits of the island ; the other apparently an occasional winter visit- 

 ant, of very irregular appearance, and I think most commonly met with in the 

 eastern counties, particularly Suffolk and Essex, according to my own expe- 

 rience. This bird is every way larger than the other, and rather more bulky in 

 its make ; its wings measuring, from the bend, three inches, and tail two inches 

 and a quarter. The plumage only differs in the markings being somewhat less 

 defined (a constant character), and in the greater intermixture of whitish on the 

 upper parts, particularly the rump, w r hich exhibits scarcely an obscure trace of 

 the roseate tinge so distinct in the other ; the wing-coverts are also more broadly 

 and conspicuously tipped with yellowish-brown. It is impossible to overlook its 

 manifestly superior size, as seen alive ; and the mealy-white feathers of the 

 rump, being ordinarily thrown over the wings when the bird is at rest, accord- 

 ingly constitute another very conspicuous character. 



The chirp and call-note of the Mealy Linnet are undistinguished from those of 

 its near congener, but its song, though equally trivial, is decidedly different ; it as 

 frequently introduces the call-note into its song as the other, but mingles this 

 with a low harsh chattering, very unlike the less unmusical repetition of which 

 the song- notes of the small Rose Linnet are composed, and which recall to mind 

 the more continuously sustained lays of the Carduelis genus. 



Though decidedly of very rare occurrence near the Metropolis, the Mealy Lin- 

 net is tolerably well-known to the bird-catchers, who distinguish it from the 

 smaller race (or Common Redpole) by the name " Stony Redpole," which Mr. 

 Selby has mistakingly appropriated to the former. I endeavouredjjfor five or six 

 years (long previously to its being admitted into our catalogue*), to procure a 

 living specimen of the dealers, before I succeeded in the winter of 1835-6, since 



* See a notice of the species in the Field Naturalist for April, 1834, p. 172. 

 No. 15, Vol. II. 3 p 



