42 FRINOILLID.E. 



dcptli of winter it retires from the coast to the thick woods of 

 the interior." 



Mr. Audubon, in his fourth volume of American Ornitho- 

 logical Biography, now just published, says, " I found this 

 species quite common on the islands near the entrance of the 

 Bay of Fundy, which I visited early in May 1833. Tliey 

 were then journeying northwards, although many pass the 

 whole year in the northern parts of the state of Maine, and 

 the British provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia ; 

 where, hoAvever, they seem to have been overlooked, or con- 

 founded with our Common American Crossbill. Those 

 which I met with on the islands before-mentioned were ob- 

 served on their margins, some having alighted on the bare 

 rocks ; and all those which were alarmed immediately took to 

 wing, rose to a moderate height, and flew directly eastward. 

 On my passage across the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Labrador, 

 in the same month, about a dozen White-winged Crossbills, 

 and as many Mealy Redpolls, one day alighted on the top 

 yards of our vessel ; but before we could bring our guns from 

 below they all left us, and flew ahead, as if intent on point- 

 ing out to us the place to which we were bound. Within 

 the limits of the United States I have obtained some during 

 winter along the hilly shores of the Schuylkill River in Penn- 

 sylvania ; also in New Jersey, and in one instance in Mary- 

 land, a few miles from Baltimore, beyond which, southward, 

 I have never met with this species, nor have I heard of any 

 havincj been seen there. Its song is at times mellow and 

 agreeable, and in captivity it becomes gentle and familiar." 



Young birds have the beak of dark horn colour ; toAvards 

 the point, the upper mandible is so compressed the edges are 

 almost united ; the lower mandible rather lighter in co- 

 lour ; the feathers at the base of the beak, near the nostrils, 

 greyish white ; irides dark hazel ; head, neck, and back, dull 

 greenish grey, mottled with a darker tint, which pervades the 



