of the work. But it is mainly in connexion with his paintings of pure landscape that his name is known. His works commonly deal with some scene of typical uneventful English landscape, which is made impressive by a gorgeous effect of sunrise or sunset. They are full of true poetic feeling, and are rich and glowing in colour. Linnell was able to command very large prices for his pictures, and about 1850 he purchased a property at Redhill, Surrey, where he resided till his death on the 20th of January 1882, painting with unabated power till within the last few years of his life. His leisure was greatly occupied with a study of the Scriptures in the original, and he published several pamphlets and larger treatises of Biblical criticism. Linnell was one of the best friends and kindest patrons of Blake. He gave him the two largest commissions he ever received for single series of designs—£150 for drawings and engravings of The Inventions to the Book of Job, and a like sum for those illustrative of Dante.
LINNET, O. Eng. Linete and Linet-wige, whence seems to have been corrupted the old Scottish “Lintquhit,” and the modern northern English “Lintwhite”—originally a somewhat generalized bird’s name, but latterly specialized for the Fringilla cannabina of Linnaeus, the Linota cannabina of recent ornithologists. This is a common song-bird, frequenting almost the whole of Europe south of lat. 64°, and in Asia extending to Turkestan. It is known as a winter visitant to Egypt and Abyssinia, and is abundant at all seasons in Barbary, as well as in the Canaries and Madeira. Though the fondness of this species for the seeds of flax (Linum) and hemp (Cannabis) has given it its common name in so many European languages,[1] it feeds largely, if not chiefly in Britain on the seeds of plants of the order Compositae, especially those growing on heaths and commons. As these waste places have been gradually brought under the plough, in England and Scotland particularly, the haunts and means of subsistence of the linnet have been curtailed, and hence its numbers have undergone a very visible diminution throughout Great Britain. According to its sex, or the season of the year, it is known as the red, grey or brown linnet, and by the earlier English writers on birds, as well as in many localities at the present time, these names have been held to distinguish at least two species; but there is now no question among ornithologists on this point, though the conditions under which the bright crimson-red colouring of the breast and crown of the cock’s spring and summer plumage is donned and doffed may still be open to discussion. Its intensity seems due, however, in some degree at least, to the weathering of the brown fringes of the feathers which hide the more brilliant hue, and in the Atlantic islands examples are said to retain their gay tints all the year round, while throughout Europe there is scarcely a trace of them visible in autumn and winter; but, beginning to appear in spring, they reach their greatest brilliancy towards midsummer; they are never assumed by examples in confinement. The linnet begins to breed in April, the nest being generally placed in a bush at no great distance from the ground. It is nearly always a neat structure composed of fine twigs, roots or bents, and lined with wool or hair. The eggs, often six in number, are of a very pale blue marked with reddish or purplish brown. Two broods seem to be common in the course of the season, and towards the end of summer the birds—the young greatly preponderating in number—collect in large flocks and move to the sea-coast, whence a large proportion depart for more southern latitudes. Of these emigrants some return the following spring, and are recognizable by the more advanced state of their plumage, the effect presumably of having wintered in countries enjoying a brighter and hotter sun.
Nearly allied to the foregoing species is the twite, so named from its ordinary call-note, or mountain-linnet, the Linota flavirostris, or L. montium of ornithologists, which can be distinguished by its yellow bill, longer tail and reddish-tawny throat. This bird never assumes any crimson on the crown or breast, but the male has the rump at all times tinged more or less with that colour. In Great Britain in the breeding-season it seems to affect exclusively hilly and moorland districts from Herefordshire northward, in which it partly or wholly replaces the common linnet, but is very much more local in its distribution, and, except in the British Islands and some parts of Scandinavia, it only appears as an irregular visitant in winter. At that season it may, however, be found in large flocks in the low-lying countries, and as regards England even on the sea-shore. In Asia it seems to be represented by a kindred form L. brevirostris.
The redpolls form a little group placed by many authorities in the genus Linota, to which they are unquestionably closely allied, and, as stated elsewhere (see Finch), the linnets seem to be related to the birds of the genus Leucosticte, the species of which inhabit the northern parts of North-West America and of Asia. L. tephrocotis is generally of a chocolate colour, tinged on some parts with pale crimson or pink, and has the crown of the head silvery-grey. Another species, L. arctoa, was formerly said to have occurred in North America, but its proper home is in the Kurile Islands or Kamchatka. This has no red in its plumage. The birds of the genus Leucosticte seem to be more terrestrial in their habit than those of Linota, perhaps from their having been chiefly observed where trees are scarce; but it is possible that the mutual relationship of the two groups is more apparent than real. Allied to Leucosticte is Montifringilla, to which belongs the snow-finch of the Alps, M. nivalis, often mistaken by travellers for the snow-bunting, Plectrophanes nivalis. (A. N.)
LINSANG, the native name of one of the members of the viverrine genus Linsanga. There are four species of the genus, from the Indo-Malay countries. Linsangs are civet-like creatures, with the body and tail greatly elongated; and the ground colour fulvous marked with bold black patches, which in one species (L. pardicolor) are oblong. In West Africa the group is represented by the smaller and spotted Poiana richardsoni which has a genet-like hind-foot. (See Carnivora.)
LINSEED, the seed of the common flax (q.v.) or lint, Linum usitatissimum. These seeds, the linseed of commerce, are of a lustrous brown colour externally, and a compressed and elongated oval form, with a slight beak or projection at one extremity. The brown testa contains, in the outer of the four coats into which it is microscopically distinguishable, an abundant secretion of mucilaginous matter; and it has within it a thin layer of albumen, enclosing a pair of large oily cotyledons. The seeds when placed in water for some time become coated with glutinous matter from the exudation of the mucilage in the external layer of the epidermis; and by boiling in sixteen parts of water they exude sufficient mucilage to form with the water a thick pasty decoction. The cotyledons contain the valuable linseed oil referred to below. Linseed grown in tropical countries is much larger and more plump than that obtained in temperate climes, but the seed from the colder countries yields a finer quality of oil.
Linseed formed an article of food among the Greeks and Romans, and it is said that the Abyssinians at the present day eat it roasted. The oil is to some extent used as food in Russia and in parts of Poland and Hungary. The still prevalent use of linseed in poultices for open wounds is entirely to be reprobated. It has now been abandoned by practitioners. The principal objections to this use of linseed is that it specially favours the growth of micro-organisms. There are numerous clean and efficient substitutes which have all its supposed advantages and none of its disadvantages. There are now no medicinal uses of this substance. Linseed cake, the marc left after the expression of the oil, is a most valuable feeding substance for cattle.
Linseed is subject to extensive and detrimental adulterations, resulting not only from careless harvesting and cleaning, whereby seeds of the flax dodder, and other weeds and grasses are mixed with it, but also from the direct admixture of cheaper and inferior oil-seeds, such as wild rape, mustard, sesame, poppy, &c., the latter adulterations being known in trade under the generic
- ↑ E.g. Fr. Linotte, Ger. Hänfling, Swed. Hämpling.
