LOXIA CURVIROSTRA. 427 



tip ; upper mandible longer than the lower — when closed the 

 lower rises, crossed to a level with the ridge. The upper has a 

 deep central groove, the lower deeply concave, having the edges 

 raised into sharp cutters. Mr Hoy, of Stoke, Suffolk, says 

 large flocks frequented fir woods in his vicinity from November 

 to April so tame that when feeding on trees not more than 15 

 or 20 feet high, he has stood in the midst of the flock 

 unnoticed, and, when on larch trees, seen them cut the cone 

 from the branch with their beak, hold it in their claws as a 

 hawk does a bird, and extract the seeds with surprising 

 dexterity. Scotch fir cones, being larger, they cling to them 

 with both feet, and have been so busily engaged with the seeds 

 that he has captured great numbers with a horse-hair noose 

 fixed to the end of a fishing rod ; others he took with a limed 

 twig fixed in the end of the rod. In windy weather he took 

 several from the same tree without creating suspicion. As 

 spring advanced the male sang a low sweet song on the tops of 

 the trees, but kept in flocks till June. He kept four dozen in 

 a room ; they soon became very familiar and amusing pets, 

 living chiefly on canary and hemp seeds along with fir cones. 

 Macgillivray saw several hundreds in autumn on the banks of 

 the Spey feeding on rowan-tree berries. He says — " It was 

 pleasant to see the little creatures flutter among the. twigs in 

 constant motion like bees on a cluster of flowers. Their 

 brilliant colours, so much more gaudy than those of our common 

 birds, seemed to convert the rude scenery into that of some far- 

 distant land, where the redbird sports among the magnolia 

 flowers." Sometimes they commit great havoc in orchards by 

 splitting the apples and pears in two for the seeds — like killing 

 the elephant for the tusks. The head, neck, breast, and sides 

 are .red, mixed with grey on the hind neck and yellow on the 

 breast ; the lower parts, greyish-white ; lower tail coverts, 

 greyish-brown, margined with white ; back, dusky red ; hind 

 parts, reddish-yellow ; upper tail coverts, wings, and tail, deep 

 "brown ; iris, hazel — altogether a fine coloured bird. It is 7 J 

 long by 11 J in extent of wings. The tile-like red of the young 

 males becomes ash grey, deeply tinted with yellow, after the 

 first moult. The female is greenish-grey, with the rump deep 

 primrose yellow, the under parts streaked with brown. There 

 is another species called 



