BROWN LINNET. 377 



feeds when grown on canary, rape, and hemp seed, with chick- 

 weed and groundsel. In this state it pairs with the Canary 

 and Goldfinch. 



When the fine weather commences in spring, the flocks 

 hreak up, and the individuals betake themselves to their sum- 

 mer haunts, in the hilly and mountainous parts of the country, 

 especially where there are thickets of broom, whin, or sloe, 

 or even, in defect of these, where the heather attains an un- 

 usual size on the slopes of the craggy braes and glens. There 

 the male, perched on a twig or stone, pours forth his sweet 

 notes, while his mate is brooding over her precious charge. 

 But the song of the Linnet, pleasant as it may be when heard 

 in a room, has little effect on the hill side, compared with that 

 of the ^lavis or Merle, although to the shepherd swain reclin- 

 ing on the soft moss on a sloping bank overgrow^n with " the 

 lang yellow broom,"" or the weary traveller resting a while by 

 the way-side, it may seem gentle as the melody of the 23rimeval 

 groves of lost paradise, filling the soul with pleasing thoughts. 



The nest of the Linnet is generally placed in a bush of furze 

 or heath, or among brushwood, and is neatly constructed, being 

 formed externally of blades and stalks of grass, intermingled 

 with moss and wool, and lined with the hair of various ani- 

 mals. The eggs are from four to six, of a regular oval form, 

 about nine-twelfths of an inch long, from six to nearly seven 

 twelfths in their greatest diameter, bluish-white, distantly 

 spotted with purplish-grey and reddish-brown, the spots more 

 numerous tow^ards the larger end. The young are usually 

 abroad by the end of May ; and there are commonly two 

 broods in the season. 



Young. — The young wdien fledged have the upper mandible 

 pale greyish-brown, the lower flesh-coloured tinged with blue ; 

 the feet flesh-coloured, the claws brown. The upper parts are 

 yellowish-grey streaked with dusky, of which the spots are 

 larger than in the adult female ; the lower greyish- yellow, 

 streaked with brown, excepting the middle of the abdomen. 



Progress toward Maturity. — It is unnecessary, and indeed 



