P A S SE RES. F R IN G IL L ID J i.
L in o ta f l a v ir o s t r is (Linnaeus *).
THE TWITE.
Linota montium\.
T h e T w it e is at once distinguished from the common
Linnet by the greater length of its tail, which gives it a
more elongated and slender appearance, and by having a reddish
tawny throat. Moreover it assumes no crimson colouring,
either on the head or breast, at any season of the year, though
the rump of the male is always more or less of that tint,
forming the chief external characteristic of the difference
of the sexes. This bird was first made known to Willughby
by Jessop, of Broom Hall, who found it in the Peak of Derbyshire.
Rudbeck, the Swedish naturalist, included its portrait
in his collection of coloured drawings and, on the strength of
this figure, it was named Fringilla flavirostris by Linnaeus,
who also described it in his ‘ Fauna Svecica,’ but so inadequately
tnat, but for Prof. Nilsson’s subsequent determination
of the subject of the picture (K. Yet.-Acad. Handb.
* Fringilla flavirostris, Linnaeus, Syst. Nat. Ed. 12, i. p. 322 (1766).
•)• Fringilla montium, J. P. Gmeliri, Syst. Nat. i. p. 917 (1788).
1816, p. 27), the application of the name might still be
doubtful. In the meanwhile other authors, Brisson and
Pennant among them, had more fully described the species,
and some years later J. F. Gmelin in his compilation conferred
the name Fringilla montium on their bird without
perceiving that it was identical with F. flavirostris. For
this perhaps he is not much to be blamed, but his diagnosis
is altogether inapplicable, and, though his appellation has been
generally used by British writers, we need feel no compunction
in setting it aside for that which had been before given.
The Mountain-Linnet, as many writers of books have called
it, though for nearly a century at least it has been far more
generally known to those most conversant with it as the
Twite, is only a visitor to the eastern and southern parts of
England, where it is generally seen in small flocks, which,
arriving in autumn, sometimes stop for the winter in favourable
situations, but mostly pass on and may again be observed
on their return-journey in spring. In the south-west, Devonshire
and Cornwall, it is of very rare occurrence indeed*,
but it breeds in some abundance in the more hilly districts
of the Midland Counties—Hereford, Salop, Stafford, Derby
and Chester, as well as in North Wales and the Isle of Man,
and on elevated moorlands in the higher glens with increasing
frequency northward from Lancashire and the West
Riding of Yorkshire to Shetland, though in some districts it
is rather scarce, and its stronghold in the west of Scotland is
the Outer Hebrides. In Ireland it is found from north to
south, and probably breeds in suitable localities throughout
the island, but the only counties in which the Editor can yet
say that it does so are Donegal, Tyrone, Armagh and Antrim
in the north, Sligo and Mayo in the west, Dublin and
Wicklow in the east, and Tipperary and Cork in the south.
In food, flight and general habits the Twite very closely
resembles the Linnet, which it partly or wholly replaces in
some of the wilder or more mountainous districts of these
islands, and much that has been said of that species applies
* Mr. More was informed that the nest had been found in the north of Dorsetshire,
hut this is very unlikely.
VOL. Hi r