106 
CAGE ANr> SINGING BIRDS. 
Leep when obtained ; they show to most advantage in bell- 
shaped cages. 
LINNETS. 
Very nearly allied to the sparrows and finches are the 
linnets, of which there are four British species, — three of 
them songsters and common cage birds. The best known 
and most admired is 
THE BROWN, GRAY, YELLOW, OR ROSE LINNET, 
As it is variously called, in accordance with the changes 
caused hy age, or atmosphere, or other influence, on its 
plumage. Dealers speak of these as so many varieties, 
which in reality they are not j for the same bird, which at 
one year old, when it has no red feathers in the head, is a 
{jray linnet, becomes after the second moulting, when the red 
of the breast takes a golden hue from the yellowish white 
margins of the feathers, a yellow linnet; and in the spring 
of its third year, when the forehead is blood red, the feathers 
on the side of the breast the same colour, and a ferruginous 
tinge prevails over the whole body, the bird comes out in all 
its glory as a greater' redpole, or a rose Imnet. By-and-by, 
when age steals on, or sickness or confinement tell upon the 
constitution of the sweet songster, he falls from his high es- 
tate ; his plumage changes, and he is a brown, gray, or yellow 
linnet, as the case may be. There is scarcely any birH, per- 
haps, that puts on so many different dresses in the course of 
his life as our little masquerading lintie, or lint-white, as the 
Scotch call him ^ there is scarcely any telling what changes 
each moult will produce — that is, in a state of confinement ; 
for, in a natural state, the bird will go through its regular 
gradations of plumage in a natural manner, and one may 
safely judge of his age by his dress ; but in an artificial 
state, it is not so 5 and a gray canary is as likely to be an 
old and sickly bird, as a young and vigorous one ; indeed, 
more likely, for the beautiful rosy flush, which suffuses the 
wild songster in its full maturity, passes away after a year 
or two of prison life, as the hue of health from the cheek of 
one country bred, who comes to dwell in the close and 
clouded atmosphere of a populous city. Through all its 
changes, however, the little linnet is one of the very sweetest 
