Vol 'i906 in ] General Notes. 339 



Nesting of Crossbills in Nova Scotia. — During the past winter, 

 which was very mild and open, numbers of American and White-winged 

 Crossbills were found nesting in the vicinity of Wolfville, Kings Co. 



The first nests discovered were those of the American Crossbill (Loxia 

 curvirostra minor) Jan. 31, three in number. Of these, two contained 

 young, just hatched. The others held three eggs, advanced in incuba- 

 tion. These nests were not far apart, in a small, open grove of spruce, 

 fir, and hemlock, and were similarly placed on horizontal limbs of spruces, 

 from twenty to forty feet from the ground and well out from the trunk. 

 Some fifteen or twenty of the birds were constantly feeding about this 

 grove, and by their noisy chatterings and restless movements attracted 

 my attention to them. 



Though hardly expecting to find them nesting at so early a date, I 

 nevertheless watched them closely. Soon I saw a single bird leave the 

 feeding flock. Daiting away thiough the trees he disappeared among 

 the lower branches from which he soon emerged and joined his compan- 

 ions. A careful search among the branches into which this bird had 

 flown, revealed a nest, well concealed amid clustering sprigs of the ever- 

 green. The sitting female carefully watched my movements as I ap- 

 proached the nest and upon my reaching out to touch her raised the 

 feathers on her crown, opened her bill, and in short made herself look 

 quite ferocious. Finally sliding off the nest, she flitted about within a 

 few feet of me, keeping up an angry chirping, in which she was soon 

 joined by her mate. This nest was some twenty feet up, and fully ten 

 feet out from the trunk, saddled on the horizontal limb among clusters 

 of the foliage and protected from above by overhanging branches. The 

 other two nests were discovered in the same way — by watching the feed- 

 ing flock, and noting the movements of birds leaving it from time to time. 



During the following months, many other nests were found. Great 

 diversity in choice of nesting sites among individuals of both species was 

 noticed to exist. Nests of the American Crossbill were found in spruces, 

 firs, and hemlocks at elevations ranging from ten to eighty feet. Most 

 nests were found in spruces of large growth and with thick, spreading 

 branches in open woods. Others were found in dense groves of ever- 

 greens in the little bunch of foliage at the extreme top of otherwise de- 

 nuded firs, while still others were found concealed in dead trees of the 

 same kind among the hanging moss and twigs, close to the trunk. A few 

 nests were found in young hemlocks in the little clusters of twigs that 

 sprout out at the junction of the branches and trunk. 



The character of the woods did not seem to affect the choice of the 

 birds much, provided that cone-bearing trees were near at hand. Thus 

 nests were found in dry open upland woods as well as in the low dense 

 growths of the swamps, and in woods of mixed growth as well as in ever- 

 greens alone. 



Nests of the White-winged species (Loxia leueoptera) were found in 



