50 AMERICAN CROSSBILL. 



Dimensions. Length, 6.00 ; stretch, 10.25 ; wing, 3.75 ; 

 tail, 2.45 ; bill .78 ; tarsus, .65. 



Comparisons. Readily known from the White-winged 

 Crossbills by the absence of white bands on the wing, and 

 from all other members of the family by the crossed bill. 



Nests and Eggs. Nests, placed in trees, they are rather 

 compact, composed of twigs and bark, lined with moss. 

 Eggs, four or five in number, oval in form, pale bluish or 

 greenish white in color, sparingly spotted and scrawled with 

 lines of dark brown and lilac. Dimensions, .52 by .73. 



General Habits. The Red Crossbills, as related under 

 Family characters, offer an example of a species vrhich has 

 not only lost the migrating instinct, but which has also lost 

 that love of locality which is so strongly implanted in most 

 other birds, and which induces them to return year after year 

 to breed in the vicinity of the place where they were hatched. 

 They are true nomads among birds, breeding in any locality 

 which will offer them nesting sites, and at any time of year 

 from February until August, when they can find sufficient 

 food for their young. Thus they have been found nesting in 

 Maine in February, in New York City in April, fully grown 

 young have been found at Peterboro N. Y. in July, and at New- 

 ton in August, which, in both cases must have been hatched in 

 June, and on Cape Cod in July, and at Tyngsboro, Massa- 

 chusetts, in August, and in many other places at various times. 



The chief food of the Red Crossbill in winter is the seeds of 

 coniferous trees, and the supply of this food regulates the move- 

 ments of the birds, which simply wander about in search of 

 supplies, and thus occur as far south as Maryland, Virginia, 

 and along the mountain ranges into Georgia, breeding wherever 

 thev occur. 



