LINNET 



515 



bestowed by Buffon on tlic South-American form, is often given to 

 it in books. 



LINNET, Anglo-Saxon Linetc and Linct-nngc, whence seems 

 to have been corrupted tlie old Scottish " Lintquhit," and the 

 modern northern English " Lintwhite," — originally a somewhat 

 generalized bird's name, but latterly specialized for the Fringilla 

 cannabina of Linnaeus, the Linota cannabina of ornithology.^ This 

 is a common and well-known song-bird, fi-equenting almost the 

 whole of Europe south of lat. 64°, and in Asia 

 extending to Turkestan. Li Africa it is known 

 as a AAanter visitant to Egypt and Abyssinia, and 

 is abundant at all seasons in Barbary, as well as 

 in the Canaries and Madeira. Though the fond- 

 ness of this species for the seeds of Hax (Liimm) , , ,, Linnet. 



-, T ,,-/ 7- \ 1 • - • (After Swaiiison.) 



and hemp {Cannabis) has given it its common 

 name in so many European languages,- it feeds largely, if not 

 chiefly, in Britain on the seeds of plants of the order Composite, 

 especially those growing on heaths and commons. As these 

 waste places have been gradually brought under the j^lough, 

 and improved methods of cultivation have been applied to all 

 arable land, in England and Scotland particularly, the haunts and 

 means of subsistence of the Linnet have been sloAvly but surely 

 curtailed, and hence of late years its numbers have undergone 

 a very visible diminution throughout Great Britain, and its diminu- 

 tion has also been aided by the detestable practice of netting it in 

 spring — for it is a popular cage-bird — so popular indeed as to 

 require no special description. According to its sex, or the season 

 of the year, it is known as the Red, Grrey or Brown Linnet, and 

 by the earlier English writers, as well as in many places now, these 

 names have been held to distinguish at least two species ; but there 

 is no c[uestion on this point, though the conditions under which the 

 bright crimson-red colouring of the breast and crown of the cock's 

 spring and summer plumage is donned and doffed may still be 

 open to discussion. Its intensity seems due, however, in some 

 degree at least, to the weathering of the brown fringes of the 

 feathers which hide the more brilliant hue, and it is to be remarked 

 that in the Atlantic Islands examples are said to retain their gay 

 tints all the year round, while throughout Europe there is scarcely 



' Dr. Sharpe {Cat. B. Br. Mas. xii. p. 235) puts the Linnets and Redpolls 

 ill a gemis Acanthis which he assigns to Bechstein {Orn. Taschenh. p. 125), but 

 the latter founded no such genus, keeping all his species in the Linntean Frin- 

 gilla, while the Linnets are not even in the section Acanthis, as is evident to 

 any one who will consult his work, that portion of which is dated 1802 and not 

 1803 as Dr. Sharpe states {cp. Sclater, Ibis, 1892, pp. 555-557). 



- E.g. French, Linottc ; German, Hcvnfiiny ; Swedish, Udmplivg. 



