WHTTE-WINGET) CROSSBILL. 219 



that have occurred in this country without being subjected to 

 the eye of a critical ornithologist, and it is certain that with 

 several writers professing to treat only of British or Euro- 

 pean species Western examples have done duty for Eastern ; 

 but there are three undoubted instances of birds, which 

 agree in every respect with specimens obtained in America, 

 finding their way to England or to English waters. The 

 earliest of these was a hen, killed near Worcester in 1838, 

 as communicated to this work by Strickland, and the speci- 

 men labelled by him being still in his collection at Cambridge 

 there can be no doubt about its identification. Next comes 

 a fine red cock, from which the preceding figure was drawn, 

 exhibited at a meeting of the Zoological Society, Sept. 23rd, 

 1845, by Mr. E. B. Fitton who said he had found it dead 

 and partly covered with wet sand in a crevice of some loose 

 rocks on the shore at Exmouth, on the 17th of the same 

 month, the wind being at the time south-west, and westerly 

 gales having prevailed for some days (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1845, 

 p. 91). The Author with Mr. Fitton examined this bird 

 while in the flesh. On dissection it proved to be an adult 

 male, and its stomach was empty. When some time after 

 that gentleman went to New Zealand he kindly sent it to the 

 Author and it is now in Mr. Knox's collection. The third 

 example was bought alive in October 1872, by Mr. J. H. 

 Gurney, of a man at Great Yarmouth who said that it had 

 been caught on the rigging of a vessel which arrived at that 

 port in October 1870. It had become very tame, and so 

 continued after its transfer to Mr. Stevenson's aviary at 

 Norwich, where it lived till December, 1874, having in the 

 mean time been more than once seen by the Editor. It was 

 a hen, and some particulars of its captivity have been pub- 

 lished by both the gentlemen named (Trans. Norf. and Norw. 

 Nat. Soc. 1872-73, p. 117; Zool. s.s. p. 4695). To these 

 notices is appropriate the statement made to Mr. R. Gray by 

 the late Dr. Dewar, to the effect that some twelve or fifteen 

 years before, when on his passage from America, he observed 

 great numbers of this kind of Crossbill crossing the Atlantic 

 before a stiff westerly breeze. Many of the flocks alighted 



