MEALY REDPOLE. 229 



the bird-catchers, being far more plentiful than the 

 lesser species, and many still retained the rich flame- 

 coloured tints of the breeding season. Yet the weather 

 throughout this period was not unusually severe ; and in 

 the previous winter of 1860-1, hardly a bird was taken, 

 though remarkable for its intense frosts; and again in 



1863 and 64 they were equally scarce, with an almost 

 equal degree of cold. I am not aware that the nest of 

 this species has ever been found in Norfolk; but Mr. 

 Alfred Newton has recorded in the "Zoologist" (p. 

 2382) the occurrence of a male specimen, in full 

 breeding plumage, at Riddles worth, in July, 1848, 

 which he had " no doubt had bred there" ; I was also 

 assured by one of our Norwich bird-catchers, that in 

 the spring of 1862, after the large influx of the previous 

 autumn, he observed a flock of twenty or thirty as late 

 as the middle of April. Both the mealy and lesser 

 redpoles, from their tameness and engaging actions, 

 are most desirable additions to the cage or aviary, but 

 from their happy contented natures are liable to grow 

 too fat, and like ortolans, when over fed, drop off the 

 perch in a fit of apoplexy. Mr. Charles Barnard, -of 

 this city, before mentioned as so successful in breeding 

 the bramblings in confinement, had a brood of young 

 mealy redpoles, hatched off in his aviary at Stoke, in 

 July, 1860, a very uncommon circumstance with this 

 species. A pied variety of this bird, also an unusual 

 occurrence, is recorded by Mr. T. E. Gunn in the 

 " Journal of the West Riding Naturalists' Society" for 



1864 (p. 148), which was killed at Heigham, near Nor- 

 wich, in the winter of 1857. 



