THE LINNET.
Linnets are a branch of a larger family of finches, all very familiar
to us. They are cousins, also, to the dear, impudent sparrows, and the
pretty siskin or aberdevines.
The linnets are all compactly and stoutly built, with short necks and
good sized heads, with short, strong, pointed bills, made for the ready
picking up of seed and grain, on which they live. Most of them have two
broods in the season, and they build a bulky, deep, and compact nest,
just in accordance with their character and figure; but, though all
linnet-nests have a general resemblance of form, they vary more or less
in the material used.
Linnets change their plumage once a year, and have a much more spruce
and brilliant appearance when they have their new summer suits on. They
are numerous in all parts of the country, and, excepting in the season
when they have young, congregate in flocks, and in winter are attracted
to the neighbourhood of man, finding much of their food in farm-yards,
and amongst stacks.
The linnet of our picture is the greater red-pole—one of four brothers
of the linnet family—and is the largest of the four; the others
are the twit or mountain-linnet, the mealy-linnet, and the lesser
red-pole—the smallest of the four—all very much alike, and easily
mistaken for each other. The name red-pole is given from the bright
crimson spot on their heads—_pole_ or _poll_ being the old Saxon word
for head. The back of our linnet’s head and the sides of his neck are
of dingy ash-colour, his back of a warm brown tint, his wings black,
his throat of a dull white, spotted with brown, his breast a brilliant
red, and the under part of his body a dingy white.
The linnet, amongst singing birds, is what a song writer is amongst
poets. He is not a grand singer, like the blackbird or the thrush,
the missel-thrush or the wood-lark, all of which seem to have an epic
story in their songs, nor, of course, like the skylark, singing up to
the gates of heaven, or the nightingale, that chief psalmist of all
bird singers. But, though much humbler than any of these, he is a sweet
and pleasant melodist; a singer of charming little songs, full of the
delight of summer, the freshness of open heaths, with their fragrant
gorse, or of the Scottish brae, with its “bonnie broom,” also in golden
blossom. His are unpretending little songs of intense enjoyment, simple
thanksgivings for the pleasures of life, for the little brown hen-bird,
who has not a bit of scarlet in her plumage, and who sits in her snug
nest on her fine little white eggs, with their circle of freckles and
brown spots at the thicker end, always alike, a sweet, patient mother,
waiting for the time when the young ones will come into life from that
delicate shell-covering, blind at first, though slightly clothed in
greyish-brown—five little linnets gaping for food.
[Illustration:
LINNETS AND NEST. [Page 48.
]
The linnet mostly builds its nest in low bushes, the furze being its
favourite resort; it is constructed outside of dry grass, roots, and
moss, and lined with hair and wool. We have it here in our picture;
for our friend, Mr. Harrison Weir, always faithful in his transcripts
of nature, has an eye, also, for beauty.
Round the nest, as you see, blossoms the yellow furze, and round it
too rises a _chevaux de frise_ of furze spines, green and tender to
look at, but sharp as needles. Yes, here on this furzy common, and on
hundreds of others all over this happy land, and on hill sides, with
the snowy hawthorn and the pink-blossomed crab-tree above them, and,
below, the mossy banks gemmed with pale-yellow primroses, are thousands
of linnet nests and father-linnets, singing for very joy of life and
spring, and for the summer which is before them. And as they sing, the
man ploughing in the fields hard-by, and the little lad leading the
horses, hear the song, and though he may say nothing about it, the man
thinks, and wonders that the birds sing just as sweetly now as when
he was young; and the lad thinks how pleasant it is, forgetting the
while that he is tired, and, whistling something like a linnet-tune,
impresses it on his memory, to be recalled with a tender sentiment
years hence when he is a man, toiling perhaps in Australia or Canada;
or, it may be, to speak to him like a guardian angel in some time of
trial or temptation, and bring him back to the innocence of boyhood and
to his God.
[Sidenote: _Bishop Huntley’s Anecdote._]
Our picture shows us the fledgeling brood of the linnet, and the
parent-bird feeding them. The attachment of this bird to its young is
very great. Bishop Huntley, in his “History of Birds,” gives us the
following anecdote in proof of it:—
“A linnet’s nest, containing four young ones, was found by some
children, and carried home with the intention of rearing and taming
them. The old ones, attracted by their chirping, fluttered round the
children till they reached home, when the nest was carried up stairs
and placed in the nursery-window. The old birds soon approached the
nest and fed the young. This being observed, the nest was afterwards
placed on a table in the middle of the room, the window being left
open, when the parents came in and fed their young as before. Still
farther to try their attachment, the nest was then placed in a cage,
but still the old birds returned with food, and towards evening
actually perched on the cage, regardless of the noise made by several
children. So it went on for several days, when, unfortunately, the
cage, having been set outside the window, was exposed to a violent
shower of rain, and the little brood was drowned in the nest. The poor
parent-birds continued hovering round the house, and looking wistfully
in at the window for several days, and then disappeared altogether.”
[Illustration]