CATALOGUE OF CANADIAN BIRDS. 431 
BreEepinc Notes.—On April 26th I founda regular paradise for 
crossbills. Itwas a stretch of the requisite dwarf spruce lying along 
the Jade Mountains near the head of Hunt River. Here I met 
with several flocks of white-winged crossbills which, from their 
unusually lively behavior, indicated the mating season to be at 
-hand. Two or three pairs were apparently already mated, for they 
were detached from the main flock, each by itself. The males 
were singing very loudly a twitter somewhat resembling that of 
the American goldfinch, but coarser. The females were shy, fly- 
ing covertly from tree to tree and darting through the foliage to 
avoid the officious advances of the males, who were following 
them. The latter flew in broad circles above the females, with 
slowly beating wings, singing continuously, and finally settling on 
quivering, outstretched wings in a tree top. I visited this locality 
again on the 28th May, and was fortunate enough to find three 
nests of the white-winged crossbill. On this date the large flocks 
had scattered out, and the birds were mostly seen singly or in 
pairs. Two or three companies of adozen or so were noted, these 
probably being non-breeders or yearlings. The first mest was 
found by spotting a pair of birds and closely watching their move- 
ments. They were feeding when first noted, but in afew minutes 
I suddenly lost sight of the female, although the male remained 
in the vicinity, frequently uttering the metallic call-note previously 
described. After waiting some time, I proceeded to the tree 
where the female was last seen. On vigorously shaking the tree 
several times she flew out of a dense clump of branches and perch- 
ed a few yards off, chirping solicitously. Both birds soon left the 
vicinity and did not return while I remained. The nest was situat- 
ed close to the trunk,ten feet above the ground, in a mass of foliage 
so thick as to entirely hide it from view. It contained two eggs 
about one-third incubated. These are ovate and measure ‘86 x ‘61, 
°84 x ‘60. The ground colour is an extremely pale tint of blue. One 
egg has scattering ill-defined spots and blotches of pale chocolate. 
The other egg has numerous very pale lavender markings, and, 
mostly at the larger end, a number of spots and four large blotches 
f dark seal-brown. The second nest was found through locating a 
male bird by its call-note, and then tapping every tree in the 
vicinity with a stick. The female was thus flushed from her nest, 
which was 12 feet up near the top of a dwarf spruce. It was em- 
bedded ia a mass of foliage against the stem of the tree, much as 
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