I04 THE CROSSBILL 



alder and other trees are also sometimes visited, and they have 

 been noticed to resort to thistles and pick the seeds from them. 

 ' In the autumn of 1821 ', says Macgillivray, ' when walking from 

 Aberdeen to Elgin, by the way of Glenlivat, and along the Spey, 

 I had the pleasure of observing, near the influx of a tributary of 

 that river, a flock of several hundreds of Crossbills, busily engaged 

 in shelling the seeds of the berries which hung in clusters on a 

 clump of rowan (mountain ash) trees. So intent were they on 

 satisfying their hunger that they seemed not to take the least heed 

 of me ; and as I had not a gun, I was content with gazing on them 

 without offering them any molestation. They clung to the twigs 

 in all sorts of positions, and went through the operation of feeding 

 in a quiet and business-like manner, each attending to his own 

 affairs without interfering with his neighbours. It was, indeed, a 

 pleasant sight to see how the little creatures fluttered among the 

 twigs, all in continued action, like so many bees on a cluster of 

 flowers in sunshine after rain.' A writer in the Zoologist thus 

 describes the manoeuvres of a flock which he observed in 1849, ^^ ^^^^ 

 county of Durham : " On the fifteenth of July when taking a drive 

 in the western part of the county, where there are many thousand 

 acres of fir-plantations, I had the good fortune to see a flock of 

 birds cross my path, which appeared to be Crossbills ; so, leaving 

 the gig, I followed some distance into a fir-plantation, where, 

 to my great gratification, I found perhaps thirty or more feeding 

 on some Scotch firs. The day being fine, and as they were the 

 first I had seen in a state of wild nature, I watched them for about 

 twenty minutes. Their actions are very graceful while feeding, 

 hanging in every imaginable attitude, peering into the cones, 

 which, if they contain seeds, are instantly severed from the branch ; 

 clutched with one foot, they are instantly emptied of their contents, 

 when down they come. So rapidly did they fall, that I could 

 compare it to nothing better than being beneath an oak-tree in 

 autumn, wdien the acorns are falling in showers about one's head, 

 but that the cones were rather heavier. No sooner are they on 

 the wing than they, one and all, commence a fretful, unhappy, 

 chirl, not unlike the Redpoll's, but louder.' Another writer, in 

 the Magazine of Natural History, thus records his experience : 

 ' From October, 1821, to the middle of May, 1822, Crossbills were 

 very numerous in this county (Suffolk), and, I believe, extended 

 their flight into many parts of England. Large flocks frequented 

 some fir-plantations in this vicinity, from the beginning of No\'ember 

 to the following April. I had almost daily opportunities of watching 

 their movements ; and so remarkably tame were they, tliat, wdien 

 feeding on fir-trees not more than fifteen or twenty feet high, I 

 have often stood in the midst of the flock, unnoticed and unsus- 

 pected. I have seen them hundreds of times, when on the larch, 

 cut the cone from the branch with then- beak, and, holding it 



