70 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



Derbyshire. Here to-day it appears to be utterly absent in summer. 

 Mr. T. A. Coward, in his ' Vertebrate Fauna of Cheshire ' (1910), 

 mentions it for the neighbourhood of Mottram, on the authority of 

 one who knew the bird well ; but the information is some years old, 

 and personally I have failed to see any signs of it during an intimate 

 acquaintance with the district. Eumours have reached me of its 

 breeding on the rough sides of the Etherow Valley, in Derbyshire, but 

 I have never seen it there, although of course it is common a few 

 miles away. So here we have a tract of apparently suitable country, 

 reaching from (at least) Hebden Bridge to, say, Glossop, where the 

 " Common" Linnet is rare or absent in summer, and very scarce at 

 other seasons. Gorse is often said to be very attractive to Linnets, 

 and many of these rough Pennine slopes bear the plant. Few, how- 

 ever, are aware that the species which is nearly always the more 

 abundant is not the common plant, but the little known and perfectly 

 distinct Planchon's gorse {Ulex gallii). This flowers in the autumn, 

 and at no other season. Just as the " common " gorse is here 

 replaced by a totally distinct species, so is the "Common" Linnet 

 replaced by another bird. On the hills and the lower moors the 

 Twite is an abundant breeding bird, and is a common autumn and 

 winter visitor to all the lowland fields, and I suspect that in many 

 places its presence has served to mask the absence of the better 

 known bird which it so much resembles. 



All through the autumn and winter the Twite, like so many other 

 moorland breeding birds, abounds on some of the East Coast sea 

 marshes, especially those of Essex and Kent. Here, as in its breeding 

 haunts, it is regularly called " Linnet " by the inexpert. It sometimes 

 happens that the two species live side by side, but as a rule the Linnet 

 prefers the drier sandhills, while the Twite sticks to the beds of 

 Aster, Statice, and other plants that grow on the salt-laden mud. It 

 is rather a thankless task turning bird-notes into written syllables, 

 but I may be pardoned for remarking that many years ago I noted 

 that the ordinary call of the Twite is a very musical and sweet 

 " tweedley-dee," and that it frequently uses a harsher " zur-r-r." I 

 have never heard a Linnet make such sounds, nor have I watched 

 Twites for long without hearing one or both of these characteristic 

 calls. 



I think Mr. Eussell's suggestion that we should note the absence 

 of common birds is a very good one. The results in the cases of such 

 birds as the Corn-Crake, Martin, Jay, Carrion-Crow, &c., could not 

 fail to be interesting. The Linnet, however, is certainly worth a 

 little special study on this point. — Feedk. J. Stubbs, 



