84 BIRDS OF CHESHIRE. 
saw nothing of them after December 4th. The Rev. 
C. Wolley-Dod states that he generally sees flocks at 
Edge towards the end of winter, and our experience 
in the north of the county corresponds with his, for 
we have met with the bird more often in January than 
in any other month. 
Brockholes only observed the Brambling in Wirral 
during March,? but it is possible that he overlooked it 
in other months, as Coward saw a solitary bird on 
January 24th, 1897, feeding along high-water mark on 
the Lancashire shore at Blundell Sands. The latest 
date on which we have seen the Brambling in Cheshire 
is the Ist of April. On that day, in 1886, we caught a 
bird in a sparrow-net at Northenden. 
The late T. W. Barlow, writing in 1846, stated that the 
Brambling had largely decreased in the neighbourhood 
of Holmes Chapel, where it was formerly common.* 
LINNET. 
LINOTA CANNABINA (Linneus). 
Brown Linnet. 
The same influences that have caused the decrease 
of the Goldfinch—reclamation of waste land and the 
depredations of the bird-catchers—have affected the 
status of the Linnet in Cheshire. It is now almost un- 
known in the Plain as a breeding species. Mr. M. Wood 
informs us, however, that small flocks of Linnets arrive 
at Cheadle early in April, a few pairs nesting in the 
gorse bushes and thickets; and Mr. C. J. Edmondson 
has eggs in his collection which he took at Lymm in 
1 Dobie, op. cit. p. 298. 
2 Brockholes, op. cit. p. 8. 3 Zoologist, ser. 1. vol. iv. p. 1548. 
