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Mrs. Katharine Currky,



MORE NOTES ON THE CROSSBILL.


By Katharine Currey.


The fact of Crossbills nesting in captivity in England is

deeply interesting. The Crossbill has always been a special

favourite of mine among pet birds, and one I brought several

years ago from Tyrol had a romantic story.


One autumn day, when driving in a wild part of the

mountains, we met some Roumanian gipsies. Under their cart

swung a little battered cage, and in it sat a Crossbill. VVe

stopped and bought the bird, and brought it home to England.

The delight of the little creature on being transferred from its

wretched prison (which we took care to have burnt at the next

inn we stopped at) to a new roomy cage, was quite touching,

and when he was given a bath, it amounted to ecstacy. He

“ chipped ” and whistled, and splashed in and ont as if he never

could have enough. One wing was broken—an old injury—but

otherwise he was quite healthy.


In his home in England he lived near a window looking

south-east, on a large branch of an apple tree, with a fir bough

on it. On the matting below was his little cage with his food

in it, and close by his bath a large flower-pot saucer, which I

prefer to any other kind, as birds can perch on the rim. He had

complete freedom, but never left his bough, except to climb

down sometimes fora trip in the garden, where he “ chipped ”

to the wild birds, and then hurried back again to his bough,

especially when the Ring-doves walked in and helped them¬

selves to the food in his cage. Once he fetched me in from the

garden to fill his bath which was empty, and in order to make

me understand what he wanted he took hold of my dress in his

beak. His days were spent in climbing up and down his beloved

bough, and sitting among the fir needles, singing his sweet song,

expressive of all the sounds of his native forest—the chip of the

woodman’s axe, the clink of falling stones and bits of rock, the

tinkle of the brook, and the whistle of the wind in the pines.


“ Ziller,” as we called him, used to hide in his fir bough if

visitors came, and would hiss at them if they were strangers.

He loved a game, and used to play with me on his branch a sort

of hide-and-seek, ‘chipping ’ and hissing with fun and excitement.



