TJie American Cross- Bill. • 203 



THE AMERICAN CROSS-BILL, Loxia (Z.) airvirostra minor; 

 {Brehm.) AS TO SOME OF ITS HABITS AND ITS 

 FONDNESS FOR SALT. 



By William Hubbell Fisher. 



Read November i and December 6, 1887. 



During my stay in the Adirondacks, I was much interested in 

 the American Cross-bill, Loxia (Z.) curvirostra ■minor, [Brehm). 

 One of the most marked and interesting characteristics of this bird is 

 its fondness for Uving in the close neighborhood of human abodes, 

 and its boldness in the presence of man. As I observed them 

 during the latter part of August and the first part of September of 

 this year (1887), at Dunbar's grounds, Stillwater, on Beaver River, 

 in Township number five of Brown's Tract, Lewis County, New 

 York, these birds reminded me of the European rparrow, in the 

 numbers in which they flocked around the hotel, and around the 

 empty cottages in front of the hotel. With the rising sun they 

 would begin their "cheep," "cheep." They would fly in a flock 

 to a small tree about eight feet high, near the kitchen, and in such 

 numbers as literally to fill the branches. Anon, you would see a 

 whole row of them on a fence between the hotel and the side cabin, 

 and while sitting there they would allow you, in passing, to ap- 

 proach so near that one was tempted to touch them with the hand. 

 At another time you would see a garbage pile covered with them. 

 They enjoyed sitting on a peak or ridge-pole of a cottage where 

 the roof on each side slanted up to a meeting line. A favorite 

 place for some of them was the slender flag-pole; one would sit on 

 the top, while others seemed to enjoy hanging to the sides of the 

 pole and looking around at the world beneath. 



From Dunbar's three of us made an excursion northward past 

 the Kettle-hole, near which the sheriff of Lewis County was so badly 

 frozen last spring, while assisting to stock one of the lakes with 

 fish, then past SUm Pond, thence to Raven Lake, where we were 

 hospitably entertained at the camp of Rufus J. Richardson, by the 

 latter, and his pleasant, agreeable family. I had not been seated 

 in their camp more than ten minutes before a couple of birds 

 audaciously swept down and confronted us — cross-bills again, 



