Talk:Linnet
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Removed the following cut&paste from very old materials at http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/1/3/3/11330/11330-h/11330-h.htm
[edit] A linnet at sea
It has been often observed, that birds, in the course of their flight from one country to another, will frequently resort to the rigging of a ship, as a resting-place in their transit across the wide ocean. Mr. Gray, in his "Letters on Canada," gives the following instance:—Among the extraordinary things, he observes, one meets with at sea, it is not one of the least surprising to observe small land birds several hundred miles from land. I was sitting on deck, when, to my great surprise, my attention was arrested by the warbling of a bird. I looked up, and saw a linnet perched on the rigging, and whistling with as much ardour as if on a bush in a green meadow. It is not a little astonishing how these little birds should be able to continue on the wing so long as is necessary to fly several hundreds of miles, particularly when the usual shortness of their flight is considered. They continue sometimes with a vessel several days, and are frequently caught by the sailors; but it is remarked that they seldom live, though every care is taken to give them proper food. When the vessel rolls much, they find it difficult to retain their footing on the rigging, and you see them forced, as it were, to resume their flight in search of a better resting-place.
