MEALY AND LESSER REDPOLLS. 67 



Seeds of various plants and insects are its food; it will hover 

 lightly over the grass, dropping on the dandelion " clocks," or 

 perched on a low twig or bramble reach for a flowering grass 

 head and hold it down with one foot whilst it picks out the 

 seeds. In spring it joins other birds in the hunt for aphids, 

 both on sycamores and fruit trees, often hanging whilst it neatly 

 pecks them from the under surface of a leaf; it also frequents 

 the larches for their pests. 



The small deep nest (Plate 27) is built in a bush, hedge, 

 bramble or tree at a variable height from the ground ; its 

 foundation is small sticks, to which is added moss, grass and 

 wool, with hair, wool, vegetable down, and sometimes feathers 

 for a lining. The four to six eggs are rather deep blue-green 

 with speckles or spots of reddish brown (Plate 34), darker and 

 smaller than those of the Linnet. Though the first clutch is 

 seldom laid before the middle of May, a second brood is often 

 reared. 



The Lesser Redpoll is a small, dark-brown finch with a 

 crimson forehead and crown ; the mantle and back are 

 streaked with dark brown, but the lower back is greyer than 

 the mantle ; the rump is tinged with pink. The chin is black, 

 distinguishing it at once from the Linnet and Twite. The 

 under parts are huffish white, dark pink on the breast. Two 

 buff bars cross the wings. The bill is horn-coloured, the legs 

 and irides brown. The grey tips of the new feathers after the 

 autumn moult do not entirely obscure the pink on head and 

 breast. The female is without the pink on the breast, but has a 

 crimson forehead ; the young has no pink on the head, breast 

 or rump, and is a brown speckled bird. 



The Mealy Redpoll is an uncertain winter visitor, in some 

 years plentiful, in others absent ; it freely flocks with the Lesser. 

 The trill sounds a little deeper and longer, but in notes, habits 

 and appearance the two are very similar. It is as tame as 

 the smaller bird ; I have had a party at my feet turning over 



