22 BRITISH BIRDS. 



unless the trees are very lofty, when they are about on 

 a level with their summits. Besides trilling when on the 

 wing, the bird also trills when perching, though then the 

 performance is subdued as compared with the aerial 

 utterance. And where several pairs are nesting very 

 close together — as is frequently the case — all the males 

 may be in the air together, one taking up the trilling 

 refrain as the other ceases. I have also heard a softly 

 modulated song from the male — always when he has 

 been settled close to the nest. It first ascends, then 

 descends the scale, and you must be near indeed to catch 

 the notes at all. 



As a general maxim, birds which congregate in autumn 

 and winter, as the species under discussion does (though 

 I have never seen very big gatherings ; usually a small 

 party, or even only two or three, whilst a single bird at 

 those seasons is no uncommon sight), pair annually. 

 Despite this, however, I know many haunts which are 

 patronized each succeeding summer by Lesser Redpolls, 

 a fact which suggests that at any rate one of each given 

 pair returns unerringly to the old trysting place with his 

 or her new partner, as the case may be. In fact, I have, 

 on several occasions, found this year's nest built within 

 a few feet of the relics of last season's. Although the 

 Lesser Redpoll cannot claim to be gregarious in the 

 summer, it is certainly very social, and in some districts 

 it is nothing for three or four nests to be placed in as 

 many trees within a radius of a comparatively few square 

 yards. 



For a resident species the Lesser Redpoll is a notoriously 

 late breeder, as, although the gatherings disperse and 

 pairs are formed during the early part of April and all 

 through that month, I can never recollect finding eggs 

 before the middle of May, and that must be reckoned as an 

 exceptionally early record. Even here in Sussex I seldom 

 think it worth while to look for the nests till the last 

 few days of that month or early in June. In 1908 the 

 first eggs I saw were on June 6th, and between that date 



