ON THE MEALY LINNET. 
461 
when thus in search of sustenance have been noted by all who have written on 
them. 
It is in the adaptation to cling on pensile twigs, Fir-cones, and the like, that the 
Eedpoles structurally differ somewhat from the true Linnets; and they have the bill 
rather more drawn out at the point, insomuch that our common species has been 
ranked as a Siskin in Carduelk. The males acquire the shining crimson on the 
crown at the first moult, but the rosy colour on the breast (except merely a trace 
of it in a few specimens) not before the second, and it is not fully developed till 
the third. Females also exhibit more or less of this colouring, but it is in general 
quite wanting in the sex, though the crown, after shedding the nestling garb, is 
of a saffron tint. Their seasonal changes have been before adverted to. 
Of the two British races, one is a constant resident, migrating seasonally 
within the limits of tb'<^ fisland j the other apparently an occasional winter visit¬ 
ant, of very irregular appearance, and I think most commonly met with in the 
eastern counties, part’jularly Suffolk and Essex, according to my own expe¬ 
rience. This bird is every way larger than the other, and rather more bulky in 
its make; its wings measuring, from the bend, three inches, and tail two inches 
and a quarter. The plumage only differs in the markings being somewhat less 
defined (a constant character), and in the greater intermixture of whitish on the 
upper parts, particifiarly the rump, which exhibits scarcely an obscure trace of 
the roseate tinge so'd.istinct in the other,* the wing-coverts are also more broadly 
and conspicuously tipped with yellowish-brown. It is impossible to overlook its 
manifestly superior size, as seen alive; and the mealy-white feathers of the 
rump, being ordinarily thrown over the wings when the bird is at rest, accord¬ 
ingly constitute another very conspicuous character. 
The chirp and call-note of the Mealy Linnet are undistinguished from those of 
its near congener, but its song, though equally trivial, is decidedly different; it as 
frequently introduces the call-note into its song as the other, but mingles this 
with a low harsh chattering, very unlike the less unmusical repetition of which 
the song" notes of the small Rose Linnet are composed, and which recall to mind 
the more continuously sustained lays of the Curduelis genus. 
Though decidedly of very rare occurrence near the Metropolis, the Mealy Lin¬ 
net is tolerably well-known to the bird-catchers, who distinguish it from the 
smaller race (or Common Redpole) by the name Stony Redpole,” which Mr. 
Selby has mistakingly appropriated to the former. I endeavoured,|for five or six 
years (long previously to its being admitted into our catalogue*), to procure a 
living specimen of the dealers, before I succeeded in the winter of 1835-6, since 
* See a notice of the species in the Field Naturalist for April, 1834, p. 172, 
No. 15, Vol. II, 3 p 
