THE GREATER RED-POLE FINCH. 47 



the ptarmigan, build hardly any nest at all. In birds which 

 during the breeding time are so very generally distributed, 

 both the place of the nest and the materials of which it is. 

 composed must vary. In one part of the country they may 

 be on fruit trees, in another in thorn hedges, in a third in 

 furze, and in a fourth in the tops of heath, though more 

 rarely in the latter, as the places where it grows are less- 

 abundant in caterpillars. 



Chaffinches prefer insects and their larvae, as long as these 

 are to be found ; and they do great service in the destruction 

 of them, not only while they have young, but after these 

 are fledged, and the whole have come about the gardens ; 

 nor is it till they have cleared the insects from the plants 

 that they begin to eat seeds j and soon after they betake 

 themselves to these, they also betake themselves to the 

 fields, and pick up those seeds that are better taken thait 

 left. 



THE GREATER RED-POLE FINCH (Fringilla cannobind). 



Though a very common and also a well-marked bird, this 

 is one of those about which there has been some confusion. 

 It is the linnet, the grey linnet, the white linnet, the brown 

 linnet, and also the rose linnet, of England ; so also as 

 Untie is the lowland Scotch for linnet it is the Untie, the 

 qrey Untie, the white Untie, the brown Untie, and sometimes, 

 but not always, the rose Untie, of Scotland. The lesser red- 

 pole, or stone red-pole, which does not build in England, at 

 least in the south, is the true rose Untie of those parts of 

 Scotland, in which the ancient language of the lowlands is 

 most free from English or Irish admixture. The latter bird 

 is, indeed, the more rosy of the two, as the female is in some 

 places tinged with red as well as the male. * 



The greater red-pole (it is not the poll but the breast that 

 is red) is about six inches long, and ten in the stretch of 



