256 



MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 



particularly hard winter our surburban gardens and orchards are so nearly freed from the inces- 

 sant and nerve-wearying clamor of Sparrow voices, and so increasingly blessed by the sweet 

 songs and attractive presence of various kinds of native birds, that, for a brief season, we are 

 reminded of conditions which obtained thirty or more years ago; but the Sparrows, unfortu- 

 nately, are so very prolific that in the course of a single summer they often make good what- 

 ever losses they may have suffered during the previous winter. Indeed it is only too evident 

 that, as a species, if not always individually, they are quite equal to meeting and surviving the 

 extreme vicissitudes of our changeable climate. Nevertheless there are reasons for believing 

 that, they will never again become so inordinately numerous as they were ten or fifteen years 

 ago. Apparently they have already begun to suffer from adverse influences other than those just 

 mentioned, and at present obscure. All this was to have been expected, of course, for 

 Nature's laws are inexorable and her balance, which, for a time, the alien birds have so violently 

 and generally disturbed in America, must readjust itself sooner or later. 



The changes in the numbers and local distribution of many of our native birds, which 

 accompanied and, as most of us believe, directly resulted from the introduction of the House 

 Sparrow, have been so fully discussed in the Introduction to the present Memoir that it would be 

 superfluous to reconsider them in this connection. Nor is it the part of wisdom either to dwell 

 unduly on a blunder that is obviously irretrievable, or to regret the past too keenly. Happily, 

 to those of us who have reached middle life, the memory of times when the sweet calm of spring 

 and early summer mornings was never broken by the ceaseless, insistent din of myriad Sparrow- 

 voices, and when Bluebirds, House Wrens, Swallows, Purple Finches and Song Sparrows were 

 among our most abundant and familiar city birds, is fast fading; while to the younger genera- 

 tions the tradition that such conditions existed in a not as ^et remote past, must of necessity 

 seem shadowy and unreal.] 



143. Loxia curvirostra minor (Brehm). 

 American Crossbill. Red Crossbill. 



Of common but irregular occurrence at all seasons. 



Red Crossbills are true nomads ; even in the coniferous forests of the North 

 they have no fi.xed places of abode nor even any regular times for nesting. At 

 least this is true of the northern region with which I am most familiar, namely 

 that about Lake Umbagog, where the birds occur by thousands some years and 

 are nearly or quite absent during others, and where I have known females with 

 eggs or with young just out of the nest to be found at various times from Febru- 

 ary to October. In that region Crossbills seldom appear numerously, — and 

 never, I think, settle down to breed, — excepting when their favorite food trees, 

 the spruces and balsams, are loaded with ripening cones. 



When not occupied with family cares Red Crossbills indulge their restless 

 natures by roving widely in search of food — or change of scene — and their 

 wanderings extend over practically the whole of southern New England. Thus 



