Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 1 (1877).djvu/32

6 Mr. Gould fortunately enables me to declare that this form is not his L. canescens, as was asserted by Bonaparte and Prof. Schlegel, who have been followed in their mistake by most ornithological writers. A brief notice of this Redpoll is given in my new edition of Yarrel's work before named (ii. pp. 143–145).

3. Next there is a very interesting form, not until this year recognised as an inhabitant of the Old World. This is the bird described some fifteen years ago by Dr. Coues under the name of Ægiothus exilipes (Proc. Ac. Nat. Sc. Philad. 1861, p. 385). Our adventurous countrymen who have lately visited the northern parts of Russia, Messrs. Alston, Harvie Brown and Seebohm, have brought thence numerous specimens of it. In the depth of winter it is nearly as hoary as the last, but its small size enables it to be easily distinguished therefrom. I have seen examples from Lapland proper, but I cannot aver that it breeds there. From Archangel eastwards to the Petchora country it must be very common. Mr. Dresser has specimens obtained in Turkestan by Dr. Severzov, and we may guess that its range extends wholly across Siberia. At any rate it appears in that part of North America which is subject to the most severe climate, and it is as an Arctic-American species that Dr. Coues described it. Meanwhile we may speak of it as Linota exilipes. It has not, so far as I know, been obtained in these Islands: Mr. Dresser will no doubt do it justice in his valuable work.

4. Lastly we have the peculiarly British form of Redpoll. This, though commonly called by English and some foreign authors Linota linaria, is, as I have often said before, not the true linaria of Linnæus, and its earliest specific epithet is rufescens, assigned by Vieillot some sixty years since (Mem. R. Accad. Sc. Torino, xxiii. Sc. Fis. p. 202). To Temminck, the inveterate antagonist of the naturalist just named, is undoubtedly due the confusion which for so long a time surrounded this charming little pet of our childhood. According to all the information I have been able to obtain and sift, it would not appear to breed anywhere but in the British Islands, and, were it not that its roving disposition sends it to southern countries in winter, it would be as emphatically peculiar to our own land as is the Red Grouse. In point of size it fairly agrees with L. exilipes, but L. rufescens is never hoary and keeps from its youth upward that rufescent colouring which prompted Vieillot to give it the appellation by which it should be known.