CATALOGUE OF CANADIAN BIRDS. 463 



hand. Two or three pairs were apparently already mated, for they 

 were detached from the main flock, each by itself. The males 

 were singing very loudly a twitter somewhat resembling that of 

 the American goldfinch, but coarser. The females were shy, flying 

 covertly from tree to tree and darting through the foliage to avoid 

 the officious advances of the males, who were following them. The 

 latter flew in broad circles above the females, with slowly beating 

 wings, singing continuously, and finally settling on quivering, out- 

 stretched wings in a tree top. I visited this locality again on the 

 28th May, and was fortunate enough to find three nests of the 

 white- winged crossbill. On this date the large flocks had scattered 

 out, and the birds were mostly seen singly or in pairs. Two or 

 three companies of a dozen or so were noted, these probably being 

 non-breeders or yearlings. The first nest was found by spotting 

 a pair of birds and closely watching their movements. They were 

 feeding when first noted, but in a few minutes I suddenly lost sight 

 of the female, although the male remained in the vicinity, frequently 

 uttering the metallic call-note previously described. After waiting 

 some time, I proceeded to the tree where the female was last seen. 

 On vigorously shaking the tree several times she flew out of a dense 

 clump of branches and perched a few yards off, chirping soHcitously. 

 Both birds soon left the vicinity and did not return while I remained- 

 The nest was situated close to the trunk, ten feet above the ground, 

 in a mass of foliage so thick as to entirely hide it from view. It con- 

 tained two eggs about one-third incubated. These are ovate and 

 measure .86x.6i, ,84 x .60. The ground colour is an extremely 

 pale tint of blue. One egg has scattering ill-defined spots and 

 blotches of pale chocolate. The other egg has numerous very pale 

 lavender markings, and, mostly at the larger end, a number oi 

 spots and four large blotches of dark seal-brown. The second nest 

 was found through locating a male bird by its call-note, and then 

 tapping every tree in the vicinity with a stick. The female was thus 

 flushed from her nest, which was twelve feet up near the top of a 

 dwarf spruce. It was embedded in a mass of foliage against the 

 stem of the tree, much as in the case of the first nest. It contained 

 two pipped eggs and one newly hatched young. The parents evinced 

 more soHcitude in this case, chirping and flying from tree to tree. 

 The third nest was found similarly, though the female left the nest 

 unobserved and I had to wait until she returned to be able to locate 



