LESSER REDPOLE. 517 



them in August, the same author says, scattered over a tract 

 overgi-own with thistles, the seeds of which they picked out 

 precisely in the same manner as the Goldfinch. On such 

 occasions, unless they have previously been shot at or pur- 

 sued, they take little heed of approaching danger, so that 

 one may easily approach them.'" This habit of unsuspecting 

 confidence has been noticed by other naturalists. The Rev. 

 W. T. Bree remarks,* "I well remember, when a very 

 young sportsman, or rather a young carrier of a gun, falling 

 in with a flock of Redpoles feeding on the seeds of the alder; 

 after firing at them, I found that they returned to the very 

 same tree (though I was standing under it) before I could 

 reload my gun. This they did many times, and with a 

 perseverance which I shall not easily forget." Mr. Audubon, 

 in the fourth volume of his Ornithological Biography, very 

 recently published, says of the Lesser Redpole, " they were 

 in small parties of seven or eight, apparently formed by the 

 members of the same family ; and although several of these 

 groups were around me, they did not intermingle until fired 

 at, when they all simultaneously rose on wing, mixed toge- 

 ther, and after performing several short evolutions, returned 

 to the same bushes, separated into families, and resumed 

 their occupations. When alighted they were quite unsus- 

 pecting, and so heedless as to allow a close apjiroach, scarcely 

 regarding my presence, but clinging to the branches, dex- 

 terously picking out the seeds of the alder cones, and occa- 

 sionally coming to the ground after some which had dropped. 

 Few birds exhibit a more affectionate disposition than the 

 Little Redpoll, and it was pleasing to see several on a twig 

 feeding each other by passing a seed from bill to bill, one 

 individual sometimes receiving from his two neighbours at 

 the same time." 



Mr. Selby, who visited Sutherlandshire in June 1838, says, 



* The Naturalist, vol. iii. p. 425. 



