LINNET ss 
bestowed by Buffon on the South-American form, is often given to 
it in books. 
LINNET, Anglo-Saxon Linete and Linet-wige, whence seems 
to have been corrupted the old Scottish “ Lintquhit,” and the 
modern northern English “ Lintwhite,’—originally a somewhat 
generalized bird’s name, but latterly specialized for the Fringilla 
cannabina of Linneus, the Linota cannabina of ornithology.1 This 
is a common and well-known song-bird, frequenting almost the 
whole of Europe south of lat. 64°, and in Asia 
extending to Turkestan. In Africa it is known 
as a winter Visitant to Egypt and Abyssinia, and 
is abundant at all seasons in Barbary, as well as 
in the Canaries and Madeira. Though the fond- 
ness of this species for the seeds of flax (Linum) 
and hemp (Cannabis) has given it its common 
name in so many European languages,’ it feeds largely, if not 
chiefly, in Britain on the seeds of plants of the order Composite, 
especially those growing on heaths and commons. As _ these 
waste places have been gradually brought under the plough, 
and improved methods of cultivation have been applied to all 
arable land, in England and Scotland particularly, the haunts and 
means of subsistence of the Linnet have been slowly but surely 
curtailed, and hence of late years its numbers have undergone 
a very visible diminution throughout Great Britain, and its diminu- 
tion has also been aided by the detestable practice of netting it in 
spring—for it is a popular cage-bird—so popular indeed as to 
require no special description. According to its sex, or the season 
of the year, it is known as the Red, Grey or Brown Linnet, and 
by the earlier English writers, as ,well as in many places now, these 
names have been held ‘to distinguish at least two species ; but there 
is no question on this point, though the conditions under which the 
bright crimson-red colouring of the breast and crown of the cock’s 
spring and summer plumage is donned and doffed may still be 
open to discussion. Its intensity seems due, however, in some 
degree at least, to the weathering of the brown fringes of the 
feathers which hide the more brilliant hue, and it is to be remarked 
that in the Atlantic Islands examples are said to retain their gay 
tints all the year round, while throughout Europe there is scarcely 
LINNET. 
(After Swainson.) 
1 Dr. Sharpe (Cat. B. Br. Mus. xii. p. 235) puts the Linnets and Redpolls 
in a genus Acanthis which he assigns to Bechstein (Orn. Taschenb. p. 125), but 
the latter founded no such genus, keeping all his species in the Linnean Frin- 
gilla, while the Linnets are not even in the section Acanthis, as is evident to 
any one who will consult his work, that portion of which is dated 1802 and not 
1803 as Dr. Sharpe states (cp. Sclater, Zbis, 1892, pp. 555-557). 
2 #.g. French, Linotte ; German, Hinfling ; Swedish, Hampling. 
