538 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 237 part i 



H. Nelirling (1896) writes of several birds being kept in a cage. 

 They took food immediately after being captured. They were kept 

 for as long as fom* years in perfect health, and did not seem to suffer 

 from the summer's heat. 



Ridgway (1889) quotes Thomas H. Douglas who described the 

 behavior of red crossbills with the white-winged crossbills. He says 

 that the birds "got along well together when out of doors (would pick 

 seeds out of the same cone) , when in captivity (as we had them several 

 times) the former would not let the latter feed, and killed some by 

 picking them on the head," 



James Haynes Hill (1902) says of a captive pair that "during the 

 last week of February 1901, the female wished to go to housekeeping 

 and materials were given them, fine twigs, fine birch bark and a little 

 Usnea moss. But the male bird treated his mate with disdain, 

 quarreling with her and driving her from perch to perch." 



T. S. Roberts (1932) says of birds summering in Minnesota: "Dur- 

 ing midday we found it indulging in prolonged bathing or sitting on 

 low bushes overhanging the water." 



John Macoun (1909) writes that the species bred freely on Cape 

 Breton Island in the winter of 1898-99, but left very suddenly in 

 April leaving several broods of young. 



John W. Cadbury collected an immature male, now in the Academy 

 of Natural Science in Philadelphia, which came aboard a ship in an 

 exhausted condition about 1158 miles east of Cape May, N.J., and 

 less than 400 miles from Cape Race, Newfoundland. 



Charles F. Morrison (1889) quotes the species as occm-ring in winter 

 in Colorado at 10,000 feet altitude. He (1888) also records a specimen 

 taken at about 9,500 feet. 



Voice. — C. W. Townsend (1906) give a lengthy description of the 

 song, saying: 



The trills resembled so closely those of the Canary-bird, that several persons 

 who heard it spoke of the bird as the "Wild Canary." Far from being low and 

 feeble, the song was delivered with great vigor and abandon, the birds often 

 flying about in large circles over the woods. Occasionally the song was de- 

 livered from the top of an evergreen, but usually its vehemence was so great that 

 the bird was lifted up into the air, where it flew about slowly, pouring out meanwhUe 

 a great volume of music. This lasted for minutes at a time, and ceased only when 

 the exhausted bird came to a perch. The song would often be at once taken up by 

 another bird, and occasionally several were singing in the air at a time. 



The volume of the sound was constantly swelling and dwindling, at times a low 

 sweet warbling, then a rough rattling, more like a mowing-machine, then a loud 

 all-pervading sweet, sweet, sweet, recalUng exactly a Canary-bird. Anon the song 

 would die down to a low warbling, and again burst out into a loud sweet triUing 

 whee, whee, whee. 



When singing from a perch, which was always the tip-top of a spruce or fir, the 

 Crossbill frequently twitched its tail, and erected the feathers of its crown. One 



