86 BIRDS OF CHESHIRE. 
Bridge, where the Redpoll is common, the broods 
combine in early autumn; and we have often seen 
them feeding on the seeds of Hieraciwm and other 
composite plants which abound on railway embank- 
ments and waste ground. During the winter months 
small flocks of Redpolls may be met with in Wirral 
and all parts of the Plain, where many are taken by 
bird-catchers to supply the demand for this species 
as a cage-bird. 
The nest is often placed in a thorn hedge, an alder 
or birch tree, and sometimes in a bush at the side of a 
pit. At Higher Sutton we once found one which was 
artfully concealed in a tuft of leaves at the extremity 
of a long brier. 
TWITE. 
LINOTA FLAVIROSTRIS (Linneus). 
Moor Linnet. 
As a breeding species in Cheshire, the Twite is now 
confined to the Hill Country of the Kast. It is plentiful 
on the moorlands of Longdendale, and Mr. 8. Radclifte 
informs us that it breeds freely on the higher ground in 
the neighbourhood of the Swineshaw reservoirs. The 
bird is common on all the grouse-moors of the Derby- 
shire border, and we have even seen it in the breeding 
season on the pastures near Wincle. John Rowbottom, 
an old gamekeeper, has shown us Twites captured by 
him on Werneth Low, near Hyde, where he assures us 
the bird breeds every year on a patch of rough heathy 
ground, 
The Twite was fairly abundant at Carrington before 
the Moss was reclaimed, and it probably nested in 
former times on many of the low-lying mosses in 
