The Birds' Calendar 



thoughts to the glad coming time, the birds are 

 not so easily deceived as man, and the winter 

 species are still here in full force, while the 

 migrants linger in the south. 



Early in the month I found a small flock of 

 an interesting sort in a group of evergreens, 

 called red crossbills. They are about six inches 

 long (the size of the familiar English sparrow), 

 the male of a brick-red color, with dark wings 

 and tail, while the female is olive-green with 

 a yellowish suffusion. The sexes are often thus 

 differently colored, sometimes so much so that 

 it would not seem that they could belong to 

 the same species. Throughout the feathered 

 tribe, with (it is said) only one exception as far 

 as known, wherever the sexes differ in plumage 

 it is the male that makes the finest appearance. 



Although not especially handsome, the cross- 

 bills are very graceful in motion and attitude, 

 as they cling to the swaying evergreen branches, 

 and skilfully extract the food from the cones. 

 In this operation they are doubtless aided, 

 though at first sight one would suppose them 

 to be seriously hindered, by that peculiarity of 

 anatomy from which they receive the name of 

 crossbill ; for it looks as if the lower half of the 

 bill (called mandible) were twisted out of posi- 



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