CROSSBILL. 189 



succeeded in rearing their young several times. Mr. Earthy 

 mentions (Essex Literary Journal, Jan. 1839, p. 90) having 

 heard that the Crossbill bred in Orwell Park, near Ipswich, 

 in 1822. In June 1821, Selby obtained many examples in 

 Northumberland, and remarked that the denuded state of 

 the breasts of the females shewed that they had lately been 

 incubating. Knapp also noticed the same condition in a 

 female killed in Gloucestershire, and in truth hardly a year 

 passes in which similar observations may not be made. Mr. 

 Hewitson in 1837 figured an egg of this species (Brit. Ool. 

 pi. cxxxiv.) which had been taken in the summer of 1829 from 

 a nest in a larch-tree at Boynton in Yorkshire, and supplied 

 to him by Arthur Strickland. The late Miss Anna Gurney in 

 her natural-history notes, since published, records a Crossbill's 

 nest at Sherringham in Norfolk in April of the year last 

 mentioned (Trans. Norf. & Norw. Nat. Soc. ii. p. 19) ; and 

 Mr. Hancock states that a nest with the young was found at 

 Hesleyside in Northumberland July 15th, 1838.* From this 

 both parents and young were shot, and one of the latter is in 

 his collection. In the following year the Author received 

 from Mr. H. L. Long a nest, two eggs and a nestling of 

 this species which had been procured in the Holt Forest, 

 near Farnham — all of which specimens were exhibited to 

 the Zoological Society soon after (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1839, p. 

 60), and that gentleman states (Mag. Nat. Hist. ser. 2, iii. 

 pp. 236-238 and 311) that after having a diligent watch 

 kept three nests had been met with there in the early spring 

 of 1839. In the same year two nests of the species were 

 seen by Mr. J. Brown {torn. cit. p. 310 and Hewitson, ' Eggs 

 J-^r. B.' i. p. 170) in Gloucestershire. 



Up to about this time it was presumed that owing to the 

 greatly-increased extent of fir-plantations the Crossbill was 

 becoming far more numerous in England, but experience 

 seems to shew that this has hardly been the case, and of 

 late years no very considerable additions to the number of 

 instances of its breeding in England have been made. Still 



'" Mr. Hancock mentions two otlier instances, as he was informed, of the 



species breeding in that county or in Durham. 



