BRITISH BIRDS' NESTS. 47 



CROSSBILL. 



(Loxia ctirvirostra^) 

 Order PASSERES ; Family FRINGILLID^: (FINCHES). 



Description of Parent Birds. Length from six 

 and a half to seven inches. Beak rather large, 

 upper mandible turned down and lower one up. 

 They do not lie in consequence in a straight line 

 over each other, but cross like the blades of a pair 

 of scissors. The Crossbill varies more in colora- 

 tion according to age, sex, and individual than 

 perhaps any other British bird. 



Swaysland gives the following description : 

 " When young the male birds are greenish-brown, 

 with a tinge of olive, the whole being speckled with 

 darker brown ; they are, however, lighter upon the 

 under-parts ; but after the first moult a red tinge 

 prevails, occasioned by the tipping of the feathers 

 with that hue. The red is much darker upon 

 the upper-parts. At the second moulting these 

 colours are lost, and the bird's plumage becomes 

 an olive-brown, shaded over with greenish-yellow 

 upon the back, though it is much lighter upon the 

 under-parts, and is speckled with orange upon the 

 breast and rump. 



" The females are, however, either grey with a 

 little green on the head, breast, and rump, or else 

 speckled in an irregular manner with those colours." 



Professor Newton, in describing the male with 

 the second dress on, says : " A red male that had 

 completed his first autumnal moult had the bill 

 dull reddish-brown, darkest towards the tip of the 

 upper mandible ; irides dark brown ; the head, 

 rump, throat, breast, and belly tile-red ; the feathers 



