108 RUDDY-BREASTED BIRDS. 



LESSER REDPOLL.— Plate 49. Lcngtli, 4^ inches. 

 Upper parts dark brown, with warm brown edgings 

 to the feathers ; rump (in summer) rosy ; wings and 

 tail dark brown, with lighter edgings to the feathers, 

 the wings having warm buft* cross-bars ; crown 

 crimson ; small patch before the eye and chin black ; 

 breast (in summer) rosy ; sides of bod}'- ruddj^-brown 

 streaked with dark brown ; belly dull white. Female 

 lacks the red markings. Resident. 



Eggs. — 4-6, blue, spotted and blotched with pale 

 purply-brown, and having a few spots and streaks of 

 deep red-brown, often forming a zone; "63 x "48 inch 

 (plate 125). 



Nest. — Of twigs, grass, and moss, lined with seed- 

 down, hair, and feathers, and placed usually, a few feet 

 to a few yards from the ground, against the stem of a 

 birch-tree ; also in willows and alders ; in short, in 

 many kinds of bushes and low trees growing on 

 moss-lands. 



Distribution. — General, but rare in south-western 

 England. 



This bird is a small Linnet, confined as a breeding 

 species to the north of a line drawn from Norfolk to 

 Shropshire, though breeding sparingly in some more 

 southerly situations. In winter it is more generally 

 distributed. The Lesser Redpoll — so called to dis- 

 tinguish it from the rather larger Mealy Redpoll, a 

 winter migrant from the Continent — is distinctly of a 

 northerly type, affecting birch woods or plantations 

 of conifers as breeding-sites, but in default of these 

 making shift with high hedges, fruit-trees, or shrubs. 

 In autumn the birds begin to move about in small 



