TWITE. Ill 



FRINGILLA FLAVIROSTRIS. 

 TWITE. 



(PLATE 13.) 



Passer linaria niontana, Briss. Orn. iii. p. 145 (1760). 



Fringilla flavirostris, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 322 (1766) ; et auctorum plurimomm 



Latham, Pallas, (Bonaparte), (Degland fy Gerbe), (Gray), (Salvadori), (Gould), 



(Dresser), (Neivton), &c. 



Fringilla montium, Gmel. Syst. Nat. i. p. 917 (1788). 



Linaria montium (Gmel.), Leach, Syst. Cat. Mamm. fyc. Brit. Mus. p. 15 (1816). 

 Cannabina montium (Gmel.), Brehm, Vog. Deutschl. p. 278 (1831). 

 Cannabina flavirostris_(Znm.), Brehm, V'6y. Deutschl. p. 278(1831). 

 Linaria flavirostris (Linn.), Macgill. Hist. Brit. B. i. p. 379 (1837). 

 Linota montium (Gmel.), Bonap. Comp. List B. Eur. 8f N. Amer. p. 34 (1838). 

 Acanthis montium (Gmel.), Btyth,jide Bonap. Consp. i. p. 540 (1850). 

 Linota flavirostris (Linn.), Sounders, Ibis, 1869, p. 172. 



So far as is known, the Twite was first described from specimens 

 obtained in the neighbourhood of Sheffield by Francis Jessop, F.R.S., the 

 discoverer also of the Garden-Warbler and the Wood-Wren. Rather more 

 than two centuries ago this ornithologist resided on his ancestral estate of 

 Broom Hall, just outside the dirty village down in the hollow, where a 

 thriving business in the manufacture of knives and other kinds of 

 cutlery had been carried on for three centuries or more. Jessop dis- 

 covered the Twite in the Peak of Derbyshire, though he need not have 

 gone so far ; for even at the present time this bird breeds within three 

 miles of his old hall. He communicated the discovery of this bird to his 

 friend Willughby, who described it under the name of the Mountain- 

 Linnet, Linaria montana, in his ' Ornithologia,' a work which appeared 

 after his death, in 1676, under the able editorship of John Ray. Since 

 then it has been ascertained to breed in most parts of the British Islands, 

 wherever uncultivated bits of heathy land or Grouse-moors are to be 

 found. It breeds in all suitable localities in Ireland, but in the cultivated 

 districts of that country as well as of Scotland and England it is almost 

 exclusively known as a winter visitor. It is especially common on the 

 islands off the coast of Scotland, the Hebrides, the Orkneys, and the Shet- 

 lands, but it has not been recorded from the Faroes. 



Fewer British species have a more restricted range than the Twite. 

 Outside the British Islands it is only known to breed in the alpine and 

 subalpine districts of Norway, principally on the islands and near the 

 coast. In winter it has been met with sparingly in most parts of Europe 

 south of the Baltic and west of Russia. In the East it is replaced by a 



