THE BIRDS OF HAITI AND THE DOMINICAN" REPUBLIC 441 



Crossbill, Beck, Nat. Hist., vol. 21, 1921, pp. 48-49 (high slopes of Loma 

 Pelona ) . 



Resident in higher mountains; local in occurrence. 



On his first trip to the valley of Constanza in the fall of 1916, 

 when he had reached the high pine forests above Jarabacoa, W. L. 

 Abbott was told of a very small parrot that lived in flocks among 

 the pines and fed on the cones. He suspected at once that this bird 

 might prove to be a crossbill, a supposition that was verified when he 

 collected a pair of the birds at El Rio on October 7, 1916, at an eleva- 

 tion of 1,250 meters. Not only was the bird a crossbill but one with 

 white banded wings, a type that in North America does not come 

 regularly as far south as does the companion red crossbill. (PI. 26.) 



In February and March, 1917, R. H. Beck, collecting in this same 

 highland country but somewhat farther west, secured a series of 

 thirty-one crossbills which came to the collections of the American 

 Museum of Natural History. He obtained his first specimen Feb- 

 ruary 23 on the south face of Loma Rucilla at the head of the Rio 

 Yaque del Sur. Ten more were taken on March 2 and 5, and others 

 were shot at the same point on March 10, 16, and 19. He also en- 

 countered the bird on Loma Pelona March 15. Fifteen of his speci- 

 mens are in streaked, immature dress, and one taken March 5 was 

 evidently only a few days from the nest as the tail was only partly 

 grown. The collector recorded in his journal on February 24 that 

 the ground was covered with white frost so that these birds nest 

 under conditions of cold as in the north. In May, 1927 Wetmore 

 made extended search for the crossbill in the great pine forests on the 

 mountains bordering the Valley of Constanza but without success. 

 He believes that like the crossbills of the north the Hispaniolan form 

 wanders from place to place with variation in food supply. Numeri- 

 cally it is probably not abundant. He found that the birds were 

 known to some of the country people who called them periquitos. 

 Abbott was told that they came at times to the pine forests about 

 Jarabacoa. 



On April 10, 1927, in traversing a stand of open pines on Morne 

 La Selle at an altitude of 2,000 meters Wetmore heard a bird call 

 uttered steadily and insistently that may be written chu chu chu chu 

 given in a high pitched tone, and suggestive of the calls of some 

 young woodpecker in its steady reiteration. His eye caught sight of 

 the stocky form of a sparrowlike bird resting in the sun on a dead 

 limb sixty meters from the ground and in another moment a fine 

 male crossbill was in his hand. No others were seen but apparently 

 the birds occurred here regularly since he found their bones in barn 

 owl pellets from the nearby sinkhole known as the Trujin. Bond 

 reported that a flock of birds seen flying above the pines in this same 



