phical range be considered a variety or race of the present
bird, which is unquestionably the Fringilla linaria of Linnaeus
and the form to which this epithet properly belongs,
though authors, through imperfect knowledge, have very
generally misapplied it to the other. The difference between
the two was first clearly shewn by Vieillot,* who in an
admirable paper read before the Academy of Sciences of
Turin, July 7 th, 1816, very accurately described them under
the respective names of Linaria borealis and L. rufescens,
and rightly identified the former with the Linnaean F. linaria
(Mem. Accad. Sc. Torino, xxiii. p. 199). This communication,
perhaps from the discredit cast upon it by Temminck,
has been much neglected, and to the zoologist last named is
certainly due the confusion that long existed on the subject,
for he at first refused to recognize the distinctness of the two
forms, and when at last compelled by evidence to do so, he
wrongly identified the smaller and to him best-known with
the Linnaean linaria. Temminck’s faulty course was unfortunately
followed by nearly all his contemporaries, and matters
were further complicated by a third form of Redpoll being
confounded by him with the larger of the two that inhabit
Western Europe.
The Mealy Redpoll has doubtless always been, as it still
is, an irregular visitor to Great Britain, and, under this name
or that of Stone-Redpoll, is believed to have been long discriminated
by our birdcatchers | but Selby in 1825 seems to
have first f published any indication of its occurrence in this
country (111. Br. Orn. i. p. 280, note, pi. liii.** fig. 2), and
he figured, from Jardine’s collection, a specimen shot near
Edinburgh as the large variety of the Lesser Redpoll already
spoken of by Temminck. Six years later Selby ranked it
as a distinct species (Trans. N. H. Soc. Northumb. &c. i.
p. 263) in his catalogue of the birds of Northumberland and
* It had however been recognized by De Montbeillard who in the last century
spoke of the two birds, the Sizerin and the Cabaret, as distinct, though, as
might be expected, he made hopeless confusion of such of their synonyms as then
existed.
+ In former editions of the present work Walcott’s figure and description have
been referred to the Mealy Redpoll but, as the Editor thinks, erroneously.
Durham, though without particularizing any instance of its
appearance in those counties, but in 1833 he reverted to his
former opinion and took it to be an “ extra-sized specimen ”
of the hen Lesser Redpoll (111. Br. Orn. Ed. 2, i. p. 320, note).
In 1834 Blyth made some further additions to its history as
a British bird (Field-Nat. ii. p. 172), truly stating that it
occasionally visited us in considerable flocks, though its
appearance was uncertain ; that about six years before the
London birdcatchers took vast numbers, but that he had not
been able to procure a single specimen since, and that the
only instance of its capture known to him in the interim was
that of half-a-dozen examples during the preceding winter
near Croydon. SubsequentlyTMr. Gould, Mr. Eyton and
Macgillivray included it as a distinct species in their respective
works, though Mr. Jenyns thought the point required
further investigation, the first giving it the name of Linaria
canescens, and there has since been little hesitation as to its
admission among British birds.
This Redpoll is an inhabitant of the more northern parts
of both hemispheres, in winter generally seeking a less inhospitable
abode, and sometimes delaying its homeward
return so long as to have induced the belief—ot which, however,
positive proof is wholly wanting—that it may occasionally
breed in more southern latitudes. There can be
little doubt that the flocks which come with more or less
regularity to Great Britain have started from Noiway oi
Sweden, and their occurrence is far more frequently observed
on the eastern than on the western side of this island. In
Shetland, says Saxby, it is a regular winter-visitant, appearing
sometimes in large flocks early in September, first in the
north of Unst and then proceeding slowly southwards,
haunting the stony hillsides and feeding on the seeds of the
sorrel. The track of its migration most likely passes down
the eastern coast of Scotland, as shown by the fact that it
does not seem to have been noticed in the western Highlands,
while it has been occasionally observed in Aberdeenshire and
Forfarshire, and then again not unfrequently about Edinburgh.
However it would appear to cross the island at its