AMERICAN CROSSBILL. 59 



mer within the territory of the United States to breed. Their numbers 

 must, however, be comparatively few, as I have never yet met with any 

 of them in summer ; though I lately took a journey to the Great Pine 

 Swamp beyond Pocano Mountain, in Northampton county, Pennsylvania, 

 in the month of May, expressly for that purpose ; and ransacked for 

 six or seven days the gloomy recesses of that extensive and desolate 

 morass, Avithout being able to discover a single Crossbill. In fall, how- 

 ever, as well as in winter and spring, this tract appears to be their 

 favorite rendezvous ; particularly about the head waters of the Lehigh, 

 the banks of the Tobyhanna, Tunkhannock, and Bear creek, where I 

 have myself killed them at these seasons. They then appear in large 

 flocks, feeding on the seeds of the hemlock and white pine, have a loud, 

 sharp, and not unmusical note ; chatter as they fly ; alight during the 

 prevalence of deep snows before the door of the hunter, and around the 

 house, picking ofi" the clay with which the logs are plastered, and search- 

 ing in corners where urine or any substance of a saline quality had been 

 thrown. At such times they are so tame as only to settle on the roof 

 of the cabin when disturbed, and a moment after descend to feed as 

 before. They are then easily caught in traps ; and will frequently per- 

 mit one to approach so near as to knock them down with a stick. 

 Those killed and opened at such times, are generally found to have the 

 stomach filled with a soft greasy kind of earth or clay. When kept in 

 a cage they have many of the habits of the Parrot ; often climbing 

 along the wires ; and using their feet to grasp the cones in, while taking 

 out the seeds. 



This same species is found in Nova Scotia, and as far north as Hud- 

 son's Bay, arriving at Severn river about the latter end of May ; and, 

 according to accounts, proceeding farther north to breed. It is added, 

 that " they return at the first setting in of frost." * 



Hitherto this bird has, as usual, been considered a mere variety of the 

 European species ; though diff'ering from it in several respects ; and 

 being nearly one-third less ; and although the singular conformation of 

 the bill of these birds and their peculiarity of manners are strikingly 

 difi'erent from those of the Grosbeaks, yet many, disregarding these 

 plain and obvious discriminations, still continue to consider them as 

 belonging to the genus Loxia ; as if the particular structure of the bill 

 should, in all cases hut this, be the criterion by which to judge of a 

 species ; or perhaps conceiving themselves the wiser of the two, they 

 have thought proper to associate together what Nature has, in the most 

 pointed manner, placed apart. 



In separating these birds, therefore, from the Grosbeaks, and classing 

 them as a family by themselves, substituting the specific for the generic 



* Pennant. 



