NOTES AND QUERIES. 319 



destruction of pine cones by Loxia curvirostra, or common Cross- 

 bill. I will not occupy your space with any long description 

 of these small depredators, as I am sure they are well known to 

 every practical forester; but I may mention that they are all the 

 more dangerous from the fact that they are credited with build- 

 ing their nests and hatching their young in all seasons of the 

 year — in December, as in March, April, or May. 



In the woodlands on the Novar estates they are very numerous, 

 and cause great damage. They do not confine their operations 

 to ripe cones, but attack the immature ones; these they tear up 

 with their crossed bills in attempting to extract the seed, and the 

 result is that they destroy and break off a large number without 

 obtaining many seeds. In this way they will go from one cone 

 to another until they have gone over the whole tree, and the 

 ground beneath is littered with unripened cones torn to shreds ; 

 thus they may deprive the forest of hundreds of seeds without 

 having even satisfied themselves. The forester and keepers have 

 killed over four hundred Crossbills during the last twelve months, 

 but there is no apparent diminution in their numbers. 



My object in writing you is, as already stated, to ask foresters 

 all over the country to co-operate in the destruction of these 

 birds, and in using their influence with the Government to repeal 

 the protection they enjoy under the provisions of the Wild Birds 

 Preservation Act of 1890. 



Labour in rural districts is annually becoming scarcer and 

 more expensive, and it should be the object of every forester 

 to have as much land as possible stocked by the natural pr-ocess. 



John J. R. Meiklejohn. 



Systematic Nomenclature of Trees. 



For a long time British botanists, alone among the botanists 

 of the world, called silver firs Picea and spruces Abies. A few 

 years ago they abandoned their isolated position in this respect, 

 and, following the practice of their foreign brethren, called the 

 spruce tribe Picea and the silver fir tribe Abies. Is it not time 

 that our nurserymen should alter their catalogues, and that the 

 public should acquiesce in the change now recorded in the 

 Kew list? Why should they continue to call the Douglas fir 

 (Pseudotsuga Douglasii) an Ablest F. B. 



