76 The Mealy Redpoll 



or by using a pea-whistle, and the call-note somewhat resembles that of a Canar\', 

 a kind of tnvcy. 



The favourite food consists of seed of the birch, but many other seeds are 

 eaten, and in confinement the same food is eaten by the Redpolls as by the Canary ; 

 the most wholesome seeds being Canary, German rape, and oats. Curiously enough, 

 aviculturists do not appear to be aware of the fact that most seed-eating birds 

 are fond of the last-mentioned wholesome and cheap seed, and they quite laugh 

 at the mere idea of offering oats to small birds, imagining that, because the seed 

 is large, it is only suitable for Cardinals or other large birds : this is a curious 

 mistake. In addition to the above, grass-seed, thistle, and teasel, are good for a 

 change, especially during the breeding and moulting seasons. 



Not being particularly fond of Redpolls in an aviary, I have never purchased 

 the jMealy race; but Henry Stevenson in his "Birds of Norfolk" (p. 229) sa3-s: — 

 " Both the Mealy and Lesser Redpolls, from their tameness and engaging actions, 

 are most desirable additions to the cage or aviary, but iVom their happy contented 

 natures are liable to grow too fat, and like Ortolans, when over-fed, drop off the 

 perch in a fit of apoplex}'. Mr. Charles Barnard, of this city, before mentioned 

 as so successful in breeding the Bramblings in confinement, had a brood of j-oung 

 Mealy Redpolls, hatched off in his aviary at vStoke, in July, i860, a very uncommon 

 circumstance with this species." 



Of late years the judges at some of our large shows have been very unwilling 

 to award prizes, in the British classes, to birds which do not breed with us ; 

 asserting, in support of their action, that most of these birds have not even been 

 captured upon British soil ; but have been imported as cage-birds direct from 

 Germany. Singularl}' enough, they invariably waive this objection in the case of 

 the Mealy Redpoll, which (though it may be in wild breeding-plumage, and by 

 no means tame) usually carries off the prizes over the heads of the more soberly 

 clad though home-bred Lesser Redpoll. Such inconsistency can only be explained 

 on the supposition that the life-history of the Mealy Redpoll has not been so inti- 

 mately studied as it ought to be by those who have to deal with it upon the 

 show-bench. 



As Gatke observes : — " The breeding stations of the Mealy Redpoll lie within 

 the Arctic Circle, both in the Old and New World." Speaking of the migration 

 of this species, the same author says that on the 4tli and 5tli November, 1847, 

 "countless flocks" and "innumerable multitudes" visited Heligoland: — "the whole 

 island was literally co\-ered with these birds, so that one might have thrown a 

 stone in any direction one chose, and it was sure to hit birds as long as it con- 

 tinued rolling along the ground." It is during such unusual manifestations of 



