106 THE CORN (OR COMMON) BUNTING 
by drawing the inferior mandible sideways—force open the scales.’ 
‘““* At this stage’, Yarrell proceeds to say, ‘the end of the tongue 
becomes necessary ; and this organ is no less admirably adapted 
for the service required. . . . While the points of the beak press 
the scale from the body of the cone, the tongue is enabled to direct 
and insert its cutting scoop underneath the seed, and the food thus 
dislodged is transferred to the mouth; and when the mandibles 
are separated laterally in this operation the bird has an uninter- 
rupted view of the seed in the cavity with the eye on that side to 
which the under mandible is curved.’”’ 
The beak of the Crossbill then, far from being a defect in the 
organization of the bird, is a perfect implement always at its 
owner’s command, faultless alike in design and execution, and 
exquisitely adapted to its work, not an easy one, of performing, 
by a single process, the office of splitting, opening, and securing the 
contents of a fir-cone, and he must bea bold man who could venture 
to suggest an improvement in its mechanism. 
It has been observed that young birds in the nest have not their 
mandibles crossed, and at this period such an arrangement would 
be useless, as they are dependent for food on the parent birds. 
It has also been observed that the side on which the upper mandible 
crosses the lower varies in different individuals ; in some it descends 
on the right side of the lower mandible, in others on the left. The 
bird appears to have no choice in the matter, but whatever direction 
it takes at first, the same it always retains. 
The nest of the Crossbill is constructed of slender twigs of fir and 
coarse dry grass, and lined with fine grass and a few hairs, and 
concealed among the upper branches of a Scotch fir. 
The Two-barred (or White-winged) Crossbill (Loxia bifasctata) is 
only a rare straggler in winter to this country. 
THE CORN (OR COMMON) BUNTING 
EMBER{IZA MILIARIA 
Upper parts yellowish brown, with dusky spots; under parts yellowish white, 
spotted and streaked with dusky. Lengthseveninchesandahalf. Eggs 
dull white, tinged with yellow, or pink, and spotted and streaked with 
dark purple brown. 
THOUGH called the Common Bunting, this bird is by no means 
so abundant in England as the Yellow Bunting ; its name, however, 
is not misapplied, as it appears to be the most generally diffused 
of the family, being found all over the European continent, in the 
islands of the Mediterranean, in Asia Minor, and the north of 
Africa. In the latter district it appears as a bird of passage in 
November ; and about Martinmas it is so abundant as to become a 
staple article of food. At this season, all the trees in the public 
