68 



rose he shot one which proved to be a male Red Crossbill in breeding 

 plumage. He preserved the skin and still has it. The others were 

 females or young, as he says none of them had any red on them." 



Mr. Jonathan Dwight reported the American Crossbill on North Moun- 

 tain, Penn., in June, 1891. (The Auk. Vol. IX., p. 137.) Dr. B. H. War- 

 ren, in his admirable " Report on the Birds of Pennsylvania," p. 228, 

 gives it as breeding in the counties of Clinton, Clearfield, Luzerne, Ly- 

 coming and Canieron in that state. 



March 1, 1892, Messrs. A. B. Ulrey and E. M. Kindle report seeing six in 

 Monroe county, Ind. Mr. G. G. Williamson noted six near Muncie, Ind., 

 April 16, 1892, and another April 24. Messrs. Charles D. and Lewis A. 

 Test have kindly sent me the following interesting notes from the obser- 

 vations of the spring of 1892. The notes were taken near Lafayette, Ind. 

 March 8, 1892, they saw the first American Crossbill. They were seen 

 on the following succeeding dates: March 11; April 15, 19, 23 and 30; 

 May 1, 3, 6, 8, IS, 20, 21, 27 and 30; June 2, 6, 22, 23, 27 and 30. The birds 

 were seen in pine trees and also in yards and along the road. Search was 

 made for nests but none were found. I am indebted to Mr. Otto Wid- 

 raann for some valuable rotes relating to the American Crossbill in Mis- 

 souri last winter and spring and summer (1891-2). He says: " I never 

 suspected these cone loviDg nomads to descend into a country so fiat and 

 uninteresting as St. Louis county, Mo., where nature never rears a cone 

 without the help of the gardener. Thousands of young evergreens, especi- 

 ally Norway Spruces, have been planted during the past decade, but old 

 cone- bearing conifers are tew and far between. There are on my place, 

 besides a few Norway Spruces, eighteen pine trees about thirty years old. 

 Half of them are Austrian pines, the rest White and Scotch pines. Coni- 

 ferous trees do not bear fruit every year, but last winter the Austrian 

 pines were full of cones, getting ready to drop the seeds in early spring. 

 Besides the maturing pine seeds our section had another attraction for 

 erratic fruit eaters in the orchards. The apple trees had yielded an enor- 

 mous crop and the demand not being sufficiently great to gather them in 

 time, thousands of apples were still hangiDg in the trees when the Cross- 

 bills appeared on the scene. It was in the orchard that they made their 

 appearance on November 13— the day after the first ' blizzard ' had visited 

 the upper Missouri valley. From this day on, the Crossbills remained in 

 the neighborhood until the end of the month but none were here in De- 

 cember and January — at least I did not notice any until they began to 



