120 BRITISH BIRDS. 



instance of tlie association of ideas with parallel cases to wHch every field- 

 ornithologist must be familiar. Prosaically describedj it might be said to 

 resemble the rattling of loose cog-wheels. Naumann^ who only knew the 

 Mealy Redpole in winter, evidently never heard the song ; nor is there 

 any thing in Newton or Dresser's descriptions to lead one to suppose that 

 either of them ever heard more than the wiater twitterings of the Red- 

 pole. Collett, speaking of the Mealy Redpoles in Norway, mentions " a 

 prolonged trill " which is only heard in the breeding-season ; and I noticed 

 exactly the same in Siberia, except that the trill was of a slightly different 

 character. The trill of our bird is caused by the rapid repetition of a 

 double note, whilst that of the Siberian bird is produced by the repetition 

 of a single note, and thus the character of the rattling of loose cog-wheels 

 is gone. Our information respecting the song of the Greenland race is 

 still more meagre. Any one who compares my description of the song of 

 the Waxwing published in 1873 (Dresser, ' Birds of Europe,-" iii. p. 436) 

 with HolbolFs description of the note of the Greenland Redpole translated 

 and published by Dresser in 1876 {op. cit. iv. p. 56) will, however, come 

 to the conclusion that it does not difEer much from that of our bird. I 

 wrote of the Waxwing, " The only note I heard was a sort of cir-ir-ir-ir-re, 

 very similar to a well-known note of the Blue Tit. Occasionally this 

 succession of notes was repeated so rapidly as to form a triUa, like the song 

 of the Lesser Redpole.^' HolboU wrote of the Arctic Redpole, " Its caU- 

 note, which is never responded to by F. linaria, is shriU, and is not unlike 

 that of the Waxwing.^' 



In the nesting-habits of the Redpoles there is no difference amongst the 

 three races. As a rule the nest is placed in low bushes. At SheflEield I 

 have taken it in the brushwood during a ramble from my house before 

 breakfast. It is especially common on the birches and alders over- 

 hanging the Derwent near Ashopton. I have also found it ia the same 

 district in trees fifteen to twenty feet from the ground. At Tromso, on 

 the Norwegian coast, I have taken the nest in birch trees ; but on the 

 tundras of both Siberia in Europe and Siberia in Asia, as well as in 

 Greenland, this bird breeds exclusively on willow or birch bushes three or 

 four feet from the ground, for the sufficient reason that in these regions 

 loftier trees do not exist. 



Even in England the Redpole is a late breeder, a somewhat remarkable 

 fact in the history of a resident bird. In Yorkshire I have seldom taken 

 eggs before the first of June, but in the south of England it is said to 

 breed a month earlier. In the valley of the Petchora we took fresh eggs in 

 the last week of June, but in the valley of the Yenesay, in lat. 70J°, I found 

 fresh eggs in the middle of July ; but these were a second laying, the first, 

 which were laid in the middle of June, having been destroyed by the floods 

 which covered every bush on the island : so that the Redpole is amongst 



