132 



BRITISH BIRDS 



blue speckled eggs, when he had a mind to do so, as well 

 as lend a helping hand— that is to say beak — to feed the 

 two little ones that made their appearance in due course. 

 Other Redpolls have nested and reared young ones in 

 an ordinary Canary breeding-cage, and yet others would 

 have done so in a garden aviary where they were kept 

 with many other birds, had not some mice interfered and 

 sucked the poor little couple's eggs as fast as they were 

 laid in the cosy nest the hen had built in a euonymus 

 bush growing against the wall of the enclosure. 



^"5 ' 





The Common or Lesser Redpolt 



Grass and other seeds are the natural food of this 

 species, but it also feeds on aphides and small flies when 

 it can get them ; it does not, however, carry them to the 

 young in its bill after the manner of a Sparrow, but 

 swallows them first to regurgitate them afterw^ards with the 

 other food when engaged in feeding the little ones. The 

 aphis that infests the rose is an especial delicacy with the 

 Redpoll, but let the aviarist beware of the purplish-black 

 species that is found on the lilac, and more particularly 

 on the laburnum, both of which are poisonous. The aphides, 

 however, that are found in such abundance on the underside 

 of the leaves of the black poplar and the linden or lime 



