Ill



on the Breeding of the Crossbill.



town. In the district, earlier in the season, I saw numbers of

wild Crossbills. Mr. Reed has homed other birds successfully,

especially Siskins, but fears losing birds, principally owing to the

instinctive impulses connected with migration and the season of

love; otherwise, providing birds are not frightened and have

become accustomed to a reasonable sized enclosure, he sees no

great difficulty in getting them to return. He, however, can

never trust a Hawfinch, which is not to be wondered at, con¬

sidering no British finch takes longer to understand tliata human

being in the vicinity does not necessarily mean danger.


On leaving Mr. Reed, I especially asked him to inform me

of the colour change in the males, both old and young, of these

Crossbills, which have been fed principally upon seed, and have,

with the exception of a few days now and again, been allowed

entire liberty. He replied later : “ The young Crossbills have

now all moulted, most of them (the males) have assumed yellow

plumage mixed with red, but one is a beautiful carmine tint with

a few yellow feathers under the bill.” This was on or about

September 13th. On October 6th, I learned that both old and

young males were pale yellow in colour, and the young carmine

cock was splashed here and there with a few old gold feathers.


The difficulties concerned with the preservation of rose

tints and pinky flushes in many birds are thus brought to mind.

At the present time I have under observation a Two-barred

Crossbill (A. bifasciata), which was caught in Mary port Docks

in 1908, and was then in a yellowish garb; in 1910 it moulted

(although kept indoors in a bird-room) a beautiful geranium pink.

In 1895, Mr. E. G. B. Meade-Waldo, writing on the Trumpeter

Bullfinch ( Erythrospiza githaginea ) in Vol. 2, O.S., speaks of a

male of this species in his possession since 1888, which was then

nearly as ricli-coloured as a wild bird, although usually the rose-

pink of the male is lost or becomes very dingy in captivity. We

know also that the geranium red of the Scarlet or Sepoy Finch

(Haematospiza sipahi) becomes orange yellow or this tone suffused

with red blotches.


Mr. St. Ouintin’s male Pine Grosbeaks retain their colour,

but usually this is lost in captivity. Mr. H. Wormald, in Vol. 7,

Ser. II., page 359, gives 11s an instance of two immature examples



