The Birds’ Calendar 
thoughts to the glad coming time, the birds are 
‘not so easily deceived as man, and the winter 
species are still here in full force, while the 
migrants linger in the south. 
Early in the month I found a small flock of 
an interesting sort in a group of evergreens, 
called red crossbills. ‘They are about six inches 
long (the size of the familiar English sparrow), 
the male of a brick-red color, with dark wings 
and tail, while the female is olive-green with 
a yellowish suffusion. The sexes are often thus 
differently colored, sometimes so much so that 
it would not seem that they could belong to 
the same species. Throughout the feathered 
tribe, with (it is said) only one exception as far 
as known, wherever the sexes differ in plumage 
it is the male that makes the finest appearance. 
Although not especially handsome, the cross- 
bills are very graceful in motion and attitude, 
as they cling to the swaying evergreen branches, 
and skilfully extract the food from the cones. 
In this operation they are doubtless aided, 
though at first sight one would suppose them 
to be seriously hindered, by that peculiarity of 
anatomy from which they receive the name of 
crossbill; for it looks as if the lower half of the 
bill (called mandible) were twisted out of posi- 
74 
