447. Aleutian Ground-Linnet.
LEUCOSTICTE GRISEONUCHA.
Leucosticte griseonucha (Brandt), Bull. Ac. St. Petersb. 1841, p. 36 ; Baird, Trans. Chic. Acad. i. p. 317, pl. 28, fig. 2 ; Nelson, Nat. Hist. Alaska, p. 176 ; Turner, Nat. Hist. Alaska, p, 171, pl. viii. ; (Sharpe), Cat. B. Br. Mus. xii p. 275 ; Ridgway, p. 393 ; Tacz. F. O. Sib. O. p. 655.
Male ad. (Alaska). Differs from L. brunneinucha in being darker, both above and below ; crown black, the sides of the hind-crown, of the head from the middle of the eye, and the entire nape and hind-neck pearl-grey ; lores and throat blackish ; breast blackish chocolate, very slightly marked with red on the lower portion ; bill blackish horn, slightly yellowish at the base ; legs black ; iris nut-brown. Culmen 0.38, wing 4.4, tail 3.2, tarsus 0.97 inch. Sexes alike. In the winter the grey on the head and neck is duller, and the bill is yellowish with a dark tip. The nestling is dull reddish brown, greyer on the rump and abdomen, darker. on the head ; secondaries and wing-coverts broadly margined with fulvous ; no red in the plumage.
Hab. Aleutian, Prybelov, and Commander Islands ; Alaska ; is said to winter in South-eastern Siberia.
“It affects the bold ragged cliffs along the sea-shore, and is constantly in motion either on the wing, flying in sweeping, long curves, sometimes near the earth, to mount 30 or 40 feet at a single effort, alighting on some projecting ledge of a bluff to search for food, and away again to alight for a moment on a weed-stalk.” It is very tame and confiding when near the villages, but elsewhere more shy. It has no song but utters a low, mellow chirp ; its food consists chiefly of seeds, but also of insects and their larvae. It breeds in May, constructing a neat nest of grass lined with finer grass and feathers, which it places in a chink or crevice of the cliffs, and deposits 3 to 6 pure white eggs, with a rosy tinge when fresh, which measure about 0.97 by 0.67.
447. Leucosticte griseonucha
BookTitle:
A Manual Of Palaearctic Birds
Reference:
Dresser, Henry Eeles. A Manual of Palaearctic Birds. Vol. 1. 1902.
Title in Book:
447. Leucosticte griseonucha
CatNo:
447
Year:
1902
Page No:
304
Common name:
Aleutian Ground Linnet
M_ID:
30663
M_SN:
Leucosticte tephrocotis griseonucha
Volume:
Vol. 1
id:
9944
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