MEALY REDPOLL. 135 



Durham, though without particularizing any instance of its 

 appearance in those counties, hut in 1833 he reverted to his 

 former opinion and took it to he an " extra-sized specimen " 

 of the hen Lesser Eedpoll (111. Br. Orn. Ed. 2, i. p. 320, note). 

 In 1834 Blyth made some further additions to its history as 

 a British bird (Field-Nat. ii. p. 172), truly stating that it 

 occasionally visited us in considerable flocks, though its 

 appearance was uncertain ; that about six years before the 

 London birdcatchers took vast numbers, but that he had not 

 been able to procure a single specimen since, and that the 

 only instance of its capture known to him in the interim was 

 that of half-a-dozen examples during the preceding winter 

 near Croydon. Subsequently Mr. Gould, Mr. Eyton and 

 Macgillivray included it as a distinct species in their respec- 

 tive works, though Mr. Jenyns thought the point required 

 further investigation, the first giving it the name of Linaria 

 canescens, and there has since been little hesitation as to its 

 admission among British birds. 



This Piedpoll is an inhabitant of the more northern parts 

 of both hemispheres, in winter generally seeking a less in- 

 hospitable abode, and sometimes delaying its homeward 

 return so long as to have induced the belief — of which, how- 

 ever, positive proof is wholly wanting — that it may occa- 

 sionally breed in more southern latitudes. There can be 

 little doubt that the flocks which come with more or less 

 regularity to Great Britain have started from Norway or 

 Sweden, and their occurrence is far more frequently observed 

 on the eastern than on the western side of this island. In 

 Shetland, says Saxby, it is a regular winter- visitant, appearing 

 sometimes in large flocks early in September, first in the 

 north of Unst and then proceeding slowly southwards, 

 haunting the stony hillsides and feeding on the seeds of the 

 sorrel. The track of its migration most likely passes down 

 the eastern coast of Scotland, as shown by the fact that it 

 docs not seem to have been noticed in the western Highlands, 

 while it has been occasionally observed in Aberdeenshire and 

 Forfarshire, and then again not unfrequently about Edin- 

 burgh. However it would appear to cross the island at its 



