Great Invasion of Crossbills in 190!). 337 



held them for a, longer period. In those districts where food 

 has heen plentiful, and the birds have been unmolested, they 

 have settled down, and, in many cases, remained for a con- 

 siderable length of time. The ' Field ' of December the 4th 

 contains an interesting note recording the abundance of 

 Crossbills (L. curvirostra) in West Sussex and mentioning 

 the fact of a small party of the birds having daily, for the 

 space of two or three months, frequented and fed on the 

 cones of a large Douglas-fir at Leonardslee, under which 

 tree were to be seen quite five barrow-loads of stripped 

 cones lying in heaps ! The fir-tract of country in this 

 neighbourhood is ideal ground for the species, affording 

 abundant nutriment, and it is not surprising that the birds 

 should have chosen to linger there so long. 



While on the subject of food, it may be observed that the 

 recent invasion has afforded interesting cases of Crossbills 

 feeding upon many substances which we should not have 

 imagined would enter into their diet, and which under ordinary 

 circumstances would probably not do so. In addition to the 

 seeds of all species of conifers indiscriminately, the birds have 

 been observed feeding on many kinds of orchard fruit, the 

 seeds of various grasses and low-growing plants, as well as on 

 the actual flowers of some plants and on the Aphid s of different 

 species. A correspondent writing from Lombardy comments 

 on the unusual spectacle of large flocks of Crossbills feeding 

 in the open fields in the neighbourhood of Como. As to 

 the duration of last year's Crossbill invasion, it may roughly 

 be calculated to have extended over a period of about six 

 months, having commenced in the spring and lasted until 

 the autumn, although a certain number of the birds appear 

 to have remained in some localities much later and even into 

 mid-winter. 



As may be gathered from the recorded observations, there 

 seems also to have been a considerable variation in the 

 date of the first appearance of the Crossbills in different 

 countries, but this is not to be wondered at. Allowance must 

 be made for the probability, not to say the quasi-certainty, 

 of the first arrivals having passed unobserved in many 



SER. IX. — VOL. iv. z 



