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.
A beautiful little bird almost peculiar to the south of Tunisia and the adjoining regions of Algeria, is a species of bunting (Fringilla), called by the Arabs bu-habibi.
The linnets, through the genus Leucosticte, lead to the mountain-finches (Montifringilla), and the redpolls through the siskins (Chrysomitris) to the goldfinches (Carduelis); and these last again to the hawfinches, one group of which (Coccothraustes) is apparently not far distant from the chaffinches (Fringilla proper), and the other (Hesperiphona) seems to be allied to the greenfinches (Ligurinus) .
The handsome and sprightly Fringilla coelebs 3 is common throughout the whole of Europe.
It was only when, after a close examination of the sternal apparatus of one hundred and thirty species, which he carefully described, that he arrived (pp. 177-183) at the conclusion - astonishing to us who know of L'Herminier's previous results - that the sternum of birds cannot be used as a help to their classification on account of the egregious anomalies that would follow the proceeding - such anomalies, for instance, as the separation of Cypselus from Hirundo and its alliance with Trochilus, and the grouping of Hirundo and Fringilla together.