BRAMBLING—LINNE T. 
65 
74. Frmgilla montifringilla, Brambling. 
A winter visitor. 
It has occurred in all parts of the county, and is 
sometimes very numerous ; it is irregular as to its time 
of appearance, according to the severity or mildness of 
the winter. It departs in March at latest. 
Gilbert White in his Calendar notes having received 
two on January 2ist, 1775, and on February 23rd following, 
observes : " Flocks of hen chaffinches with some bramblings 
among them." 
In his "Journal" he says — January i6th, 1776 — 
" Brambling appears in farmyards among the chaffinches." 
These entries show that he was acquainted with the 
brambling. 
In the Isle of Wight, though universally distributed, 
it is not so common, and Dr. Cowper calls it rare. 
Genus — Linota. 
75. Linota cannabina. Linnet. 
Grey Linnet. 
" Next morning while he past the dim-Ht woods, 
Himself beheld three spirits mad with joy 
Come dashing down on a tall wayside flower, 
That shook beneath them, as the thistle shakes 
When three gray linnets wrangle for the seed." 
Tennyson's " Guinevere.^^ 
A common resident everywhere. 
Gilbert White has noted the vast flocks of this species 
in winter ^ — " more, I think, than can be bred in any one 
* Letter xiii. to Pennant. Selboine. January 22nd, 1768. 
