THE AMERICAN CROSSBILL. 43 
No. 18. 
AMERICAN CROSSBILL. 
A. O. U. No. 521. Loxia curvirostra minor (Brehm.). 
Synonym.—ReEpD CROSSBILL. 
Description.—Adult male: ‘Tips of mandibles crossed either way; plumage 
red, brightest on rump; feathers of back with brownish centers; wings and tail 
fuscous. Shade of red very variable-—orange, cinnabar, even vermilion, some- 
times toned down by a saffron suffusion. Jmmature males sometimes present a 
curiously mottled appearance with chrome-green and red intermingled. Female 
and young: Dull olive-green, brighter and more yellow on head and rump; 
below gray overcast by dingy yellow. Adult male, length 5.50-6.25 (139.7- 
158.8) ; wing 3.40 (86.4) ; tail 2.05 (52.1) ; bill .7o (17.8) or under. 
Recognition Marks.—Sparrow size; crossed mandibles ; male red and female 
olive-green; both without white wing-bars. 
“Nest, in forks or among twigs of a tree, founded on a mass of twigs and 
bark-strips, the inside felted of finer materials, including small twigs, rootlets, 
grasses, hair, feathers, etc. Eggs, 3-4, 0.75 x 0.57, pale greenish, spotted and 
dotted about larger end with dark purplish brown, with lavender shell-markings” 
(Coues). Av. size, .85 x .53 (21.6 x. 13.5) (Brewer). 
General Range.—Northern North America, resident sparingly south in the 
eastern United States to Maryland and Tennessee, and in the Alleghanies ; irregu- 
larly abundant in winter. 
Range in Ohio.—Nowhere of regular occurrence; occasional migrant or 
winter resident and rare breeder. 
THERE are several species of northern birds which behave as if they had 
been moon-struck on some chilly Arctic night and whose most ardent friends 
as a consequence cannot deny that they are a little “queer ;” the Red Crossbills, 
for example,—dear unsophisticated mortals who are still following the Julian 
calendar, and that only spasmodically. Normally confined to the coniferous 
timber of the Canadian highlands, they nevertheless drift south in straggling 
flocks and in very unmethodical fashion, and occasionally come upon us in 
great hordes which even the park policemen notice. 
Then in spring, either because they dread to face renewed privations or 
because they vary their plain fare with the lotus buds of forgetfulness in the 
balmy Southland, some linger to nest and spend a careless summer. Especially 
is this the case in the Alleghanies and in the mountain regions of New York and 
New England. ‘The nesting takes place according to no known law, eggs 
having been taken in mid-winter where the snow lay deep upon the ground, and 
again in July. And altho conifers are the sites usually chosen, the birds are 
not particular in this matter either—a leafless maple will do as well. 
The Crossbill owes its peculiar mandibles to an age-long hankering for 
