120 BRITISH BIRDS. 
instance of the association of ideas with parallel cases to which every field- 
ornithologist must be familiar. Prosaically described, it might be said to 
resemble the rattling of loose cog-wheels. Naumann, who only knew the 
Mealy Redpole in winter, evidently never heard the song; nor is there 
any thing in Newton or Dresser’s descriptions to lead one to suppose that 
either of them ever heard more than the winter twitterings of the Red- 
pole. Collett, speaking of the Mealy Redpoles in Norway, mentions “a 
prolonged trill” which is only heard in the breeding-season ; and I noticed 
exactly the same in Siberia, except that the trill was of a slightly different 
character. The trill of our bird is caused by the rapid repetition of a 
double note, whilst that of the Siberian bird is produced by the repetition 
of a single note, and thus the character of the rattling of loose cog-wheels 
is gone. Our information respecting the song of the Greenland race is 
still more meagre. Any one who compares my description of the song of 
the Waxwing published in 1873 (Dresser, ‘ Birds of Europe, iii. p. 436) 
with Holbdll’s description of the note of the Greenland Redpole translated 
and published by Dresser in 1876 (op. cit. iv. p. 56) will, however, come 
to the conclusion that it does not differ much from that of our bird. I 
wrote of the Waxwing, “The only note I heard wasa sort of cir-ar-ir-ir-re, 
very similar to a well-known note of the Blue Tit. Occasionally this 
succession of notes was repeated so rapidly as to form a trilla, like the song 
of the Lesser Redpole.” Holbdéll wrote of the Arctic Redpole, “ Its call- 
note, which is never responded to by F. linaria, is shrill, and is not unlike 
that of the Waxwing.”’ 
In the nesting-habits of the Redpoles there is no difference amongst the 
three races. As a rule the nest is placed in low bushes. At Sheffield I 
have taken it in the brushwood during a ramble from my house before 
breakfast. It is especially common on the birches and alders over- 
hanging the Derwent near Ashopton. I have also found it in the same 
district in trees fifteen to twenty feet from the ground. At Tromso, on 
the Norwegian coast, I have taken the nest in birch trees; but on the 
tundras of both Siberia in Europe and Siberia in Asia, as well as in 
Greenland, this bird breeds exclusively on willow or birch bushes three or 
four feet from the ground, for the sufficient reason that in these regions 
loftier trees do not exist. 
Even in England the Redpole is a late breeder, a somewhat remarkable 
fact in the history of a resident bird. In Yorkshire I have seldom taken 
eggs before the first of June, but in the south of England it is said to 
breed a month earlier. In the valley of the Petchora we took fresh eggs in 
the last week of June, but in the valley of the Yenesay, in lat. 703°, I found 
fresh eggs in the middle of July ; but these were a second laying, the first, 
which were laid in the middle of June, having been destroyed by the floods 
which covered every bush on the island: so that the Redpole is amongst 
