T W I T E . 
LINOTA FLA VIROSTRIS. 
Though of necessity somewhat local, owing to the nature of the country suitable to its requirements, the 
Twite appears to be distributed over the British Islands from north to south. On the dreary flats of 
moorland that stretch for many miles across the central portion of Caithness, I have met with numbers of 
this species throughout the summer months ; whilst in Sussex, the saltings that border the river Adur, as 
well as those lying inside the shingle-banks on the shores of the channel, arc annually resorted to by large 
flocks on the approach of winter. 
The Twite is a lively and active bird, always on the move, its actions, when in flocks, resembling 
those of the Linnet, though the localities in which it is usually found during winter point to the 
fact that this species prefers situations where its feeding-grounds are exposed to the influence of salt, 
supplied either by the spray from the sea or the overflow of the tide. 
This species is usually reported by writers as most abundant in the western districts of Scotland ; 
some twenty years ago, however, I repeatedly met with small parties (numbering from a dozen up to 
fifty) about the links and waste lands extending along the shores of the Firth of Forth to the cast of 
Dunbar. To the coast of* Norfolk the Twite is also a winter visitor; its well-known call-notes attracted my 
attention while crossing the rough stony banks in the vicinity of the shore near Salthouse, towards 
the end of February 1872. The birds were eventually detected feeding among the weeds and rough grass 
growing round the pools of water in the shingle ; when first noticed they were intermixed with Shore- 
Larks, though on taking wing the two species immediately separated. In Sussex these birds occasionally 
join in company, when on flight, with Linnets, though the immense flocks that resort to the saltings and 
adjacent rough lands are usually seen alone. Along the sea-coast halfway between Shoreham and Lancing 
there is a large sheet of brackish water, formed through the removal of soil for raising an embankment; 
this pool is surrounded by banks of mud and shingle, overgrown by coarse grass, dock, sea-poppy, beet, 
and numberless other plants. Here in autumn flocks of Twites are to be observed about the latter end 
of October, remaining in the locality till the approach of spring. On the 6tli of November 1882, I 
remarked these birds in more than ordinary numbers, their favourite haunts being about the patches of 
rank herbage on the damp and marshy portions of the ground. Meadow-Pipits resorted at all seasons to 
this waste, and the small parties of Greenfinches and Chaffinches that harboured about the shingle-banks 
often settled on the drier spots; though occasionally intermixing with other species while feeding over the 
ground, the Twites appeared to fraternize with the Linnets only. 
If watched at its home on the open moors of the Highlands, flitting from one twig of heather to 
another, it will readily be noticed that the colouring of the Twite is sober in the extreme, the rosy tinge on the 
rump of the male being by no means conspicuous ; the yellow bill, however, at once attracts attention and 
reveals the species. As far as my own experience goes, the name of Mountain-Linnet is scarcely applicable ; 
