LINNET’S NEST AND EGGS.
This species is distinguished from the Lesser Redpole by having no white bar on the wings and no black upon the chin, and from the Twite, with which it is likely to be confused, by the facts that it has a shorter and less deeply forked tail and the male lacking the red on his rump.
Last spring I spent two days on a Surrey common photographing the Stonechat figuring in the little picture which decorates the front cover of this book. He was bringing food to his offspring in a nest situated amongst some stunted heather growing in a sheltered dell formed by two gorse-clad ridges about eighty feet in height and a hundred yards apart. Although many Linnets were still roaming the countryside in flocks, numbers were busy love-making and pairing close around me, and I shall never forget the sweetness of the twittering and warbling that went on all day long.
The carols were generally sung from the topmost spray of some furze bush, which was a golden blaze of bloom, but occasionally the vocalist would utter his sweetest notes when dropping gracefully through the air to some intended resting-place.
This bird has received a great deal of attention from the poets, some of whom have described its song as a “careless lay” and others as a
“None-offending song of quiet prettiness.”
The call note of the species is a shrill twit, twit and wee, tye wee.
LINNET BRINGING FOOD FOR YOUNG.