THE COMMON CROSSBILL. 229 



every imaginable attitude, peering into the cones, wMch, 

 if tliey contain seeds, are instantly severed from the branch ; 

 clutched with one foot, they are instantly emptied of their 

 contents, when down they come. So rapidly did they fall, 

 that I could compare it to nothing better than being 

 beneath an oak-tree in autumn, when the acorns are falling 

 in showers about one's head, but that the cones were 

 rather heavier. No sooner are they on the wing than they, 

 one and all, commence a fretful, unhappy chirl, not unlike 

 the Eedpole's, but louder." Another writer, in the Maga- 

 zine of natural History,^ thus records his experience : 

 "From October, 1821, to the middle of May, 1822, Cross- 

 bills were very numerous in this county (Suffolk), and, I 

 believe, extended their flight into many parts of England. 

 Large flocks frequented some fir-plantations in this vicinity, 

 from the beginning of ISTovember to the following April. 

 I had almost daily opportunities of watching their move- 

 ments j and so remarkably tame were they, that, when feed- 

 ing on fir-trees not more than fifteen or twenty feet high, I 

 have often stood in the midst of the flock, unnoticed and un- 

 suspected. I have seen them hundreds of times, when on 

 the larch, cut the cone from the branch with their beak, 

 and, holding it firmly in both claws, as a hawk would a 

 bird, extract the seeds with the most surprising dexterity 

 and quickness. I do not mean to assert this to be their 

 general habit ; but it was very frequently done when feed- 

 ing on the larch. I have never seen them adopt the like 

 method with cones of the Scotch or other species of pine, 

 which would be too bulky for them to manage. Their 

 method with these, and, of course, most frequently mth 

 the larch, was to hold firmly on the cone with their claws ; 

 and, while they were busily engaged in this manner, I have 

 captured great numbers ; many with a horse-hair noose 

 fixed to the end of a fishing-rod, which I managed to slip 

 over their head when they were feeding, and, by drawing 



* Number for January, 1834. 



