2 
LESSER REDPOLL. 
under my observation were occasionally placed as low as three or four feet from the ground, and none 
at a greater elevation than ten or twelve feet have come under my notice. In the eastern counties 
of England, and also in the Highlands, I repeatedly watched these confiding birds engaged in collecting 
the materials for building. Under date of June 21, while in the east of Norfolk, the following appears 
in my notes for 1873 : — “ A nest of the Lesser Redpoll, about half completed, was observed in a small 
alder tree overhanging a water-dyke. Roth birds proved exceedingly unsuspicious of danger, and paid 
not the slightest attention while their actions were closely inspected at the distance of only a few 
paces. The male, a brightly tinted bird, did little or nothing to assist in the work; he, however, on 
almost every occasion accompanied the female on her short flights of some ten or twenty yards to the 
adjoining marshy ground where she collected the lining for the nest. Here he usually settled on some 
low stump or bush, and remained singing and chattering while she gathered the (luff of the cotton- 
grass. I remarked that the whole of the fluff was picked from the thorn-bushes on to which it had 
been blown since the grass commenced to seed and shed the flower. This nest was composed externally 
of dried bent-grass, together with fine strands of roots, lined with the fluff of the cotton-grass and a 
few small white feathers.” 
Though no notes were taken on the subject, I am under the impression that many nests have been 
met with in the Highlands in which a small quantity of green moss had been employed in the formation 
of the exterior. While lunching during the early part of the fishing-season in the summer of 18CG 
in a small plantation on the banks of the Lvon, in Perthshire, my attention was attracted by a low 
twittering note evidently close at hand. On turning round, a nest containing a brood of Redpolls was 
discovered within a foot of my head on a small twisted alder-stump against which I was leaning. The 
young birds were but little disconcerted, though the old ones declined to approach within three or four 
yards. Our quarters being moved a short distance, they flew down without the slightest signs of fear, 
and fed the nestlings repeatedly during the hour we remained near the spot. I Avell remember that the 
colouring of the exterior of the nest corresponded with the green and moss-grown stump on which it 
was placed; consequently it is probable that living moss was interwoven with the strands of grass and 
roots that bound together the exterior. 
No species responds more readily to the note of the call-bird, immense quantities at times being 
taken by the clap-nets. Even in the very centre of large towns Redpolls may be captured in small 
trap-cages placed on the housetops during the season the birds are on flight. I have known many 
secured in this manner in Brighton and Hastings. 
The large flocks that occasionally show themselves in winter resort for the most part to waste lands 
where the various seed-producing weeds grow rank and strong; plantations and hedgerows of alder also 
prove attractive, their haunts being almost similar to those of the Siskin, with which species they not 
unfrequently consort. 
A ben Lesser Redpoll which had been kept for some years in a cage in company with a cock Siskin 
that died in the latter end of March 1885, was much cut up at the death of her companion, for whom 
she had always evinced a great regard. For several days she called loudly, showing her grief in a most 
unmistakable manner; and the introduction of another cock Siskin proved of little avail. For the first few 
davs she pitched into the stranger and drove him about in the cage; he then asserted his authority, 
when she speedily submitted, and after continuing to mope without signs of amendment for a week or 
two, she pined away and eventually grew weaker and died. 
