48 
au.kn’s naturalist’s library. 
si 1 ,™ 
shire, and Norfolk; locally in Suffolk and Cambridgeshire' 
spanngJy in Gloucestershire and along the upper mu nf 
the lhames Valley; and more frequently thanks generallv 
supposed m the counties of Middlesex, Surrey and Kent ’^Tn 
the Southern Counties it is very local as a breeding bir i a 1 
the extreme south-west is rare at any Sme iSl m 
more generally distributed over Great } Britain pLT 1S 
bers a« caugh, on the "™‘ 
Kange outside the British Islands— The Lesser Redpoll is a 
Itafv °s Weste ™ Europe, but nests in the Alpine regions of 
Italy, Savoy, and Styria. It is also found breeding inFrmce 
SSoSh XolT n Germany ’ and has once be - 
winter, m company with Siskins and Goldfinches. It is n m 
however, not nearly so common near London during the w m 
months as it used to be. Its ways of life are very similar f 
those of the Siskin. ' similar to 
Nest— A pretty and compact little cup-shaped structure 
composed of moss and grass-stems, with a few twigs anH l 
with vegetable down and hair, with some feathers ^ ’ d d 
Eggs— Three to six in number, bluish, spotted with red 
sometimes clouding round the larger end, with overlying spots 
of purplish brown dotted about the latter. Axis o-6 i i . 
diam., o 4. ’ lnca > 
THE SPARROWS. GENUS PASSER. 
Passer , Briss., Orn., iii., p. 71 (1760). 
Type, P. domesticus Linn. 
In the genus Passer and the rest of the Finches to he 
treated of, the bill is much more swollen and “globose,” the 
