SISKINS AND REDPOLLS. 
29 
that generally while perched they are silent and very quiet 
hirds, a numher of them sitting in a Scotch pine, and re- 
maining in it even a whole day, if not disturbed ; at any 
rate, till every cone had been pried into, and the seeds ta- 
ken out. They do not take the cone off ; it may, perhaps, 
sometimes fall while being robbed, from over-ripeness. 
The holding of a cone in their claw, and extracting the 
seeds with their beak, I have never witnessed.* After 
finishing the produce of one tree, they fly ofi" in a jerking 
chuckling train, to some other. On the wing they always 
chuckle, as though talking, and, on settling again, give one 
or two loud notes, as the chaffinch does, as if to announce 
his arrival. 
The Siskin is always a regular winter visiter witli 
us, keeping company with the Lesser Redpolls, whicli 
abound wherever there are alders along the banks of the 
Wey : they feed almost entirely on the seeds of the alder, 
and whilst intent on picking them out of the little catkin- 
like cones, both these birds are so tame and fearless, that 
you may pass under the tree without alarming them. I 
have often been near enough to touch them with a longisli 
stick if I had felt inclined. While intent on getting at the 
seed, which is no very easy task, they turn and twist about 
in all directions, often imitating the tits in the variety 
of their attitudes and strangeness of their contortions : 
Bewick's marsh tit, with its back downwards and its head 
slewed round on its shoulder gives a very good idea of the 
position of a redpoll or a siskin when prying into the pen- 
dent cones of the alder. They arrive about the beginning 
of October in large flocks, consisting almost entirely of 
* Mr. Henry Doubleday has observed this act in some crossl)ills in confine- 
ment— N, 
