Pasticrcs 71) 



wliik' iiiaiiy gardeners shoot it at sight for tin- damage 

 it does ill spring to tlie buds of fruit- trees, possibly iii 

 search of insects. These with their larva?, seeds and 

 berries constitute the food. The fUght is rather heavy, 

 the notes low and mournful, but they develop into a 

 line piping song in captivity, for the lUillfinch is an 

 apt pupil when taught. The nest, built in a bush, 

 creeper, or thicket, is made of roots lined with hair, 

 and contains four or five bright greenish blue eggs with 

 purple spots ; it has invariably a foundation of dry 

 twigs. If we separate the northern European and 

 western Siberian bird from ours it will stand as P. 

 pyrrhula proper, and the British as a subspecies pileata. 

 The Crossbill (Loxia curvirostra) has been much in 

 evidence since 1909, when larger flocks of the Conti- 

 nental race than usual appeared in June and July, and 

 remained to breed in 1910. They were not confined 

 to any single district, but were most abundant in the 

 conifer woods near Thetford in Norfolk — where some 

 pairs are still nesting — in 1914. The local keepers 

 assert that a few birds have always bred there, and 

 exceptional instances for other counties had been on 

 record for many years back ; but the Crossbill used only 

 to be known as a regular inhabitant with us of the fine 

 old Scotch-fir woods of the shires from Aberdeen and 

 Inverness northwards, where the local race is by some 

 considered to differ from the Continental and is named 

 Loxia curvirostra scotica. This species has now nested 

 for a considerable number of years in Ireland. It builds 

 a compact or sometimes careless structure of twigs, 

 grass and moss, not uncommonly decorated with lichens, 

 and lays four or five eggs a little larger than, but 

 similar to, those of the Greenfinch. Scotch-firs are 



