422 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 237 tart i 



Hagenip (1891) gives us the following information on its nesting 

 and other habits : 



These birds usually build wherever a bunch of bushes may be found, but 

 rarely over five hundred or six hundred feet up the hillside, although I have met 

 examples on the higher lands during the mating-season. I discovered eight nests 

 with eggs and young. Three of the nests had the full number of eggs in May, 

 the others in June. The earliest newly-laid eggs were found on May 20, the 

 latest on June 26. One clutch consisted of four eggs, another of six, and the 

 remainder of five eggs or young. 



These nests were in willow bushes, generally in the lowest branches, close to 

 the ground, and never higher than three and one half feet. An exception was a 

 nest built upon one of the seats in an old boat which lay beside a thoroughfare 

 within the town of Ivigtut. * * * 



* * * 



The nests which I found were made chiefly of dried grass and roots, the inside 

 being lined with white plant-wool, and often with a few Ptarmigan feathers, so 

 that it looked altogether white. 



At the end of June, when the willows are in leaf, the young forsake their nests. 

 During July and August and the first half of September, both old and young 

 used to come about the houses, gathering in flocks on the refuse heaps outside the 

 brewery, and, if then a cage with a decoy bird was placed near them, they were 

 easily caught in a net. * * * 



* * * During the summer they live to a great extent on insects, and one 

 which I shot on the 2d of July had its oesophagus full of small flies. 



Their song, which they deliver both when flying and perching, is but ordinary, 

 and consists mostly of trills, reminding one of the song of Fringilla chloris. 



Winter. — In the large flocks of redpolls that occasionally visit 

 Massachusetts in winter, greater redpolls are sometimes well repre- 

 sented. William Brewster (1906) mentions that "at Nantasket 

 Beach, two young collectors, by a few random shots into an ex- 

 ceptionally large flock of KedpoUs, secured forty specimens, of which 

 six proved to be linaria, and thirty-four rostraia!" 



Referring to the large, mixed flocks, he says that the subspecies and 

 species "do not differ appreciably in notes, habits or general appear- 

 ance. It is true that rostrata and holhoellii may be occasionally 

 recognized by their superior size, and exilipes by its bleached coloring, 

 but Redpolls, as a rule, are so nervous and restless, and when in large 

 flocks are so constantly in motion and so likely to take their departure 

 at any moment, that a prompt use of the gun is usually indispensable 

 to the positive identification of any particular bird * * *." 



Distribution 



Range. — Baffin Island, Greenland, and Iceland to Iowa, Ohio, New 

 Jersey, and Scotland. 



Breeding range. — ^Breeds on Baffin Island (Clyde Inlet, Nettilling 

 Fiord), Greenland (north to MelviUe Bay on the west coast, and to 



