REDCAP— REDPOLL 773 



REDCAP, a local name of the Goldfinch. 



REDHEAD, a name often given by gunners to the male of the 

 Pochard and of the Wigeon, as well as in North America to a 

 Woodpecker, Ilelanerjpes erythrocephalus. 



REDLEG, in England a common name for the French or Red- 

 legged Partridge (p. 695), Caccabis rufa, and occasionally of the 

 Redshank (when it is generally used in plural form) ; but in North 

 America said to be applied to the Turnstone. 



REDPOLL, a very well-known native of Britain, the Linofa 

 rufescens of recent authors, for a long while confounded with the 

 Fringilla Unaria of Linnaeus, the Mealy or Stone-Redpoll of English 

 bird-catchers, which last is hardly more than an irregular winter- 

 visitant to this country, while the former, often called by way of 

 distinction the Lesser Redpoll, is resident in Scotland and a great 

 part dof England, changing its haunts, however, according to the time 

 of year, and being moreover subject to much variability in the 

 places it affects, without our being able to account for the fact 

 otherwise than on the general supposition that the choice is 

 influenced by the supply of food, just as with the Crossbills, to 

 which in several respects the Redpolls have no small affinity. 

 Thus this pleasing little bird may be found nesting abundantly, for 

 it is of a social disposition, in a locality for perhaps two or three 

 seasons in succession, and then may be altogether wanting for 

 several years, though this is especially observable of it in the more 

 southerly parts of its breeding-range, for in the more northerly it 

 exhibits a greater constancy. The Lesser Redpoll is too Avell 

 known to need description here, for even those who have not had 

 the happiness of studying its habits afield, especially in the breeding- 

 season (and there are f ev,^ small birds in this country that afford the 

 observer more enjoyment), must have seen it caged scores of times ; 

 but the lively colours which glow upon the cock-bird at liberty are 

 in confinement lost at the first moult and never resumed, so that 

 the very name Redpoll becomes a misnomer — the to]3 of the head 

 changing to dark orange, hardly visible in some lights. The 

 geographical range of the Lesser Redpoll is apparently limited to 

 Western Europe, and it cannot be confidently said to breed except 

 in the British Islands. On the other hand, the Mealy Redpoll, 

 which yearly visits us, though in variable numbers, and seems to be 

 always distinguishable by its call-note as well as by the " mealy " 

 appearance of its back, is much more widely distributed, breeding 

 abundantly throughout northern Scandinavia, though, further to 



white beneath, the male, however, having the throat and breast black. Dr. 

 Stejneger {Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus. 1886, p. 615) considers it, with another 

 equally scarce species from Japan, to form a separate genus Icoturus. 



