76 Order I 



imitations. The food is of grain and seeds and partly 

 of fruit. The nest of roots, Kned with wool and hair, is 

 placed in low hedges, bushes, or even in rough herbage ; 

 gorse-covers are favourite spots, and large colonies have 

 been found in thickets of privet. The five or six eggs 

 are greenish or bluish white with rufous spots, large 

 specimens resembling those of the Greenfinch. 



The Twite or Mountain-Linnet (A. flavirostris) is 

 often mistaken for the Linnet proper, but is readily 

 distinguished at close quarters by the very short beak 

 and the rose-red rump of the male ; it represents its 

 congener on our higher hills and moorlands from Devon, 

 central and northern England, to Scotland and Ireland, 

 being specially abundant in the northern isles. The 

 " Heather Lintie," as it is called in Scotland, only breeds 

 abroad from Scandinavia to Finland, if we separate a 

 paler Asiatic form. Its habits in general are those of 

 the Linnet ; but the nest is either in the heather or on 

 some grassy slope, often near the sea, while the eggs 

 are distinctly bluer and rounder than those of its 

 congener. 



The Redpolls, as a genus, have given a considerable 

 amount of trouble to ornithologists, who estimate quite 

 differently the value of the various forms — which are 

 worthy of specific, which of subspecific rank. Apart 

 from accidental occurrences, however, we are only here 

 concerned with two of these, the Mealy Redpoll and the 

 Lesser Redpoll, and they are sufficiently distinct. The 

 Lesser Redpoll {A. cabaret) is best known in the cold 

 season, when flocks, great or small, are seen feeding on 

 the seeds of birches, alders, or conifers, that form the 

 chief article of their diet ; they generally fly high 

 overhead, uttering their twittering cries, which resemble, 



