570 THE CROSSBILLS. 



I was out moose-hunting and started a big buck, and, in 

 the chase I found him making a circle, and cut through a 

 bunch of trees to gain upon him. On my way through 

 the thick wood, I stopped to adjust a strap on my snow- 

 shoes, and found myself face to face with a White-winged 

 Crossbill on her nest — the high bank of snow under me 

 bringing my head about level with the nest. As I ap- 

 proached closer to examine it, she flew to a branch near by, 

 where I was enabled carefully to examine and identify her. 

 The nest was placed in a fork of one of the main limbs of 

 the tree, and was composed externally of the long, gray moss 

 ( Usnea) which grew in large patches on most of the trees in 

 this vicinity, and so much resembled these patches of moss 

 as to be difficult of detection. In the inside was a lining 

 of softer moss; and between the lining and the exterior 

 were small twigs interlaced. In the nest were three eggs, 

 of a bluish-white ground-color, having dashes of red upon 

 the larger end." Other proofs of these birds breeding in 

 winter are not wanting. In the latter part of April, 1875, 

 after a severe winter, Mr. E. P. Bicknell found a nest of the 

 Common Crossbill at Riverdale, N. Y., of which he says: 

 " The nest was placed in a tapering cedar of rather scanty 

 foliage, about eighteen feet from the ground, and was with- 

 out any single main support, being built in a mass of small 

 tangled twigs, from which it was with difficulty detached. 

 The situation could scarcely have been more conspic- 

 uous, being close to the intersection of several roads (all of 

 them more or less bordered with ornamental evergreens), 

 in plain sight of as many residences, and constantly exposed 

 to the view of passers-by. The materials of its composition 

 were of rather a miscellaneous character, becoming finer 

 and more select from without inwards. An exterior of 

 bristling spruce twigs, loosely arranged, surrounded a mass 



