THE LINNET. 55 



with brown, but those of the female are marked per- 

 pendicularly. If the bird be caged after the second 

 moult, the plumage of the breast becomes materially 

 changed, as but little of the deep rosy red appears, the 

 feathers becoming browner, and in the third moult there is 

 but the faintest trace of its once distinguishing colour ; and 

 the general plumage having become deeper in character, 

 the bird is then known by the name of the tf Brown 

 Linnet." 



This bird also shows many eccentricities in the way of 

 abnormal plumage. We have had several pied specimens 

 in good song, and took one upon the Brighton Downs of 

 an elegant cream-colour (this bird lived several years) ; 

 another specimen came under our notice, which was white 

 with a lovely pink breast ; the colour upon the breast, how- 

 ever, faded in moulting, and the bird became white. A 

 pair were taken in 1882 of a delicate cinnamon-colour. 



The furze-clad sides of hills are the Linnet's favourite 

 nesting-places, though where furze is not handy, a hedgerow 

 or bushes and shrubs will often offer a home, and sometimes 

 a pair will even come into a garden near a house to build 

 their nest. This structure is composed primarily of small 

 twigs and stalks of grass and moss, intermixed with wool 

 and lined with wool, horsehair, and down. Four or five are 

 the usual number of eggs, but even six have been found ; 

 they are very much like the Goldfinch's, being of a bluish- 

 white colour, spotted especially at the larger end with 

 purple and reddish-brown, but they vary in colour, and are 

 sometimes found perfectly white : yet it is not to be pre- 

 sumed that white eggs would produce white birds. The 

 eggs are about fourteen days hatching, and in another 

 fourteen days the young leave the nest. Linnets have 



