WHITE-WINGED CROSSBILL 541 



Enemies. — This species spends a large portion of its life span in 

 areas little visited by ornithologists or even by persons sufficiently 

 interested to record their observations. Further, the very nature of 

 the terrain hampers the observer. Presumably, the species must 

 fall prey at times to various hawks and owls as do other finches. 

 Its habit of feeding on the ground must occasionally subject the bird 

 to attacks from rodents and other animals. L. Griscom (1937) 

 stresses the effect of competition between this species and the red 

 crossbill. Although the white-winged crossbill is the more northern, 

 the breeding ranges of the two species overlap in a broad belt across 

 the continent, equivalent to about half the breeding range of either 

 species. Griscom emphasizes the point that wherever one species 

 is present in numbers, the other is absent, or at most represented by a 

 vagrant flock or two. 



Winter. — Joseph Grinnell (1900a) mentions finding the species in 

 tracts of dwarf spruces bearing great clusters of cones along the 

 bases of the mountains in the Kotzebue Sound region of Alaska. He 

 says: "During the winter they were usually noted in flocks of a 

 dozen to fifty or more, flying from place to place. They then readily 

 attracted attention by their chorus of notes." When feeding, "they 

 were invariably quiet." 



While on excursions in the winter away from the forested regions 

 of the north, the species occurs, as H. Nehrling (1896) says, "in large 

 flocks and in company with the common Crossbills, Pine Grosbeaks, 

 Red-polls, Evening Grosbeaks, and Waxwings * * *. Like its ally 

 it is a very gregarious bird, being never seen alone, but always in 

 flocks." He also points out that the species may not be found again 

 in the same locality for the next 5 or 10 years. 



My own experience has been at variance with this in that, while 

 I have a number of times encountered small flocks composed of 

 both species of crossbills in the Maine forests in summer, interminghng 

 of the species in winter in more open country has been at a minimum. 

 Also, I have at times occasionally recorded a lone individual in 

 Massachusetts. In such instances, however, possibly the bird was 

 merely separated momentarily from a flock overlooked in densely 

 timbered areas. 



W. E. C. Todd (1940) attributes incursions to lack of cones in the 

 far north inasmuch as the bird is, he says, a "truly boreal species, 

 fitted to withstand the severe cold of the northern latitudes * * *." In 

 western Pennsylvania the species frequents Norway spruces but 

 seems to favor hemlocks particularly. The flocks are usuaUy small 

 but may at times amount to 300 bhds. They scatter out and recom- 

 bine in divers permutations. The snow beneath the trees in which the 

 birds feed is always weU littered with cones and scales. In March 



