PAROQUET CROSSBILL. 537 



PAROaUET CROSSBILL. 



{Loxia pijtiopsittacus, Bechst. Temminck, i. p. 325. (ed. alt.) 



Sp. Charact. — Wings without bands ; bill shorter than the middle 

 toe, very stout, and greatly incurved, the point of the lower man- 

 . dible not crossing the upper edge of the bill. 



This species, hitherto unseen in the limits of the 

 United States, inhabits, according to Temminck, the 

 high northern regions of America as well as Europe, 

 where they principally dwell and breed. They are some- 

 times, however, seen in summer in Poland, Prussia, and 

 Germany ; and disperse themselves in winter through the 

 pine forests for subsistence, returning again to the north 

 at the approach of summer. They live on the seeds of 

 the pine and alder, which they dexterously extract from 

 their cones and catkins. They nest in winter in Europe, 

 upon the branches of the same evergreens which afford 

 them their principal sustenance. In Livonia, they lay 

 in the month of May ; the nest is neatly and artfully con- 

 structed. The eggs, 4 or 5, are cinereous, marked at the 

 larger end with some large, irregular spots of blood-red, 

 and with lesser scattered spots of the same. 



Length about 7^ inches. In the old male the general color is olive- 

 grey ; cheeks, throat, and sides of the neck cinereous ; upon the 

 head brown spots edged with greenish-grey ; rump greenish-yellow j 

 breast and belly of the same color, but shaded with greyish; some 

 longitudinal spots of dark cinereous upon the flanks. Wings and 

 tail blackish-brown, edged with olive-grey; rump brown, with a 

 wide and pale border. Iris dark brown. Bill blackish horn-color. 

 Feet brown. — Male, up to the age of a year. Above and below of a 

 scarlet red, more or less pure according to the time elapsed from the 

 commencement of their second moult, which takes place in April or 

 May. Tail and wings blackish, the feathers edged with reddish. A 

 little time after the completion of the first moult, the red of the plum- 

 age becomes shaded with greyish ; also some grey spots upon the 

 throat and cheeks ; the abdomen and rump rosaceous- white, upon the 



