194 FRINGILLID^. 



appeared in the comity Armagh in 1813 and 1814, and again 

 they visited Ireland in 1821, when so many overran Great 

 Britain. Further particulars of other occurrences are given 

 by him in detail, and especially note-worthy are those, with 

 regard to the presumed breeding of the species in 1838 and 

 1839 in the counties Wicklow, Meath and Tipperary — the 

 latter supplied by Mr. R. Davis, who received a young bird 

 shot, in the act of taking food from an old male, at Balli- 

 brado near Cahir. No nest however was found, and it 

 remained for Mr. Blake Knox to establish beyond doubt 

 the fact of its breeding in Ireland. This he did in 1868 

 (Zool. s.s. p. 1133) having been furnished by Mr. Roussel of 

 Kilkea, county Kildare, with particulars of five or six pairs 

 Avliich had nests at that place in the spring of 1867. 



It may be reasonably supposed that the great flocks which 

 shew themselves from time to time in our islands have 

 crossed the sea from the continent, but that the small parties 

 which are more frequently though very intermittently 

 observed are natives of Britain. The pleasure enjoyed by 

 the true naturalist in meeting for the first time with a com- 

 pany of Crossbills has been related in his usual happy way by 

 Mr. Knox^', but the pleasure hardly loses by repetition, for 

 no one can watch the manners of these birds without being 

 thereby greatly entertained. The easy skill with which they 

 snap off a cone and grasp it, if it be of moderate size, in one 

 foot, while with the other they secure their perch, and then, 

 holding the cone firmly against the bough on which they sit, 

 tear it to pieces and pick out the seeds it contains, must 

 be seen to be appreciated. The larger cones are said to 

 be rifled as they hang (though on this point there is some 

 doubt),! or cut in two before they are dealt with, and at times 

 a cone may be held in a convenient* position by the fore- 

 toes of both feet, the hind toes only clasping the perch. 

 In the execution of these feats the birds display astonish- 

 ing bodily strength and put themselves rapidly into almost 



* Autumns on the Spey, pp. 33-35. 



+ Lord Tweeddale, in a note to tbe Editor, states that the bii-d can carry 

 aliout in its liill without difficulty the large heavy cone of a spruce-fir. 



