LINNET. 63 



head and neck, often with a few of the white bases of the 

 feathers showing as flecks or markings, especially on the nape. 

 The wing has a handsome chestnut-buff patch on the lesser 

 coverts, followed by two white bars, and the black quills are 

 margined with white. The chin, belly and rump are white, 

 the throat and breast ruddy buff. After the moult in autumn 

 the black is obscured by broad brown tips, which give it a 

 barred appearance, and brown tips and edgings dull the back 

 and under parts ; the bill is then yellowish with a dark tip. 

 The female, which has none of the decided blacks and chest- 

 nuts of the male, is a browner bird, and the young are at first 

 like the female. In any flock, birds of various ages show 

 marked differences. One male examined in March had the 

 bill creamy white with a slightly darker tip ; most of the 

 obscuring feather tips had worn off, leaving the crown glossy 

 velvet black, but on the nape were a few buff marks and on the 

 neck small white patches. The buff tips on the back were 

 thick in places, but in others irregular black blotches showed, 

 and the lower back was mottled with white. The wing showed 

 bands of buff and white, and the shoulder patch, chin, throat 

 and breast were raw sienna shading to pale buff and dirty 

 white on the belly. The under wing-coverts were canary 

 yellow. Length, 5"8 ins. Wing, 3'5 ins. Tarsus, 7 in. 



Linnet. Aca?ithis cannabi7ia (Linn.). 



The Linnet (Plate 26) is resident and migratory in the 

 British Isles, but local as a breeding species. It occurs 

 throughout Europe, except in the extreme north ; many 

 migrants winter in northern Africa. Immigrants reach us in 

 autumn when emigrants are departing ; it may be that the 

 whole Linnet population sweeps southward to return in spring. 

 Passage migrants occur in flocks in May long after our breeding 

 birds have settled down ; these often roost sociably with other 



