THE AMERICAN CROSSBILL. 43 



No. 18. 



AMERICAN CROSSBILL. 



A. O. U. No. 521. Loxia curvirostra minor (Brehm.). 



Synonym. RED CROSSBILL. 



Description. Adult male: Tips of mandibles crossed either way; plumage 

 red, brightest on rump ; feathers of back with brownish centers ; wings and tail 

 fuscous. Shade of red very variable, orange, cinnabar, even vermilion, some- 

 times toned down by a saffron suffusion. Immature males sometimes present a 

 curiously mottled appearance with chrome-green and red intermingled. Female 

 and young : Dull olive-green, brighter and more yellow on head and rump ; 

 below gray overcast by dingy yellow. Adult male, length 5.50-6.25 (139.7- 

 158.8) ; wing 3.40 (86.4) ; tail 2.05 (52.1) ; bill .70 (17.8) or under. 



Recognition Marks. Sparrow size ; crossed mandibles ; male red and female 

 olive-green ; both without white wing-bars. 



"Nest, in forks or among twigs of a tree, founded on a mass of twigs and 

 bark-strips, the inside felted of finer materials, including small twigs, rootlets, 

 grasses, hair, feathers, etc: Eggs, 3-4, 0.75 x 0.57, pale greenish, spotted and 

 dotted about larger end with dark purplish brown, with lavender shell-markings" 

 (Coues). Av. size, .85 x .53 "(21.6 x 13.5) (Brewer). 



General Range. Northern North America, resident sparingly south in the 

 eastern United States to Maryland and Tennessee, and in the Alleghanies ; irregu- 

 larly abundant in winter. 



Range in Ohio. Nowhere of regular occurrence ; occasional migrant or 

 winter resident and rare breeder. 



THERE are several species of northern birds which behave as if they had 

 been moon-struck on some chilly Arctic night and whose most ardent friends 

 as a consequence cannot deny that they are a little "queer ;" the Red Crossbills, 

 for example, dear unsophisticated mortals who are still following the Julian 

 calendar, and that only spasmodically. Normally confined to the coniferous 

 timber of the Canadian highlands, they nevertheless drift south in straggling 

 flocks and in very unmethodical fashion, and occasionally come upon us in 

 great hordes which even the park policemen notice. 



Then in spring, either because they dread to face renewed privations or 

 because they vary their plain fare with the lotus buds of forgetfulness in the 

 balmy Southland, some linger to nest and spend a careless summer. Especially 

 is this the case in the Alleghanies and in the mountain regions of New York and 

 New England. The nesting takes place according to no known law, eggs 

 having been taken in mid-winter where the snow lay deep upon the ground, and 

 again in July. And altho conifers are the sites usually chosen, the birds are 

 not particular in this matter either a leafless maple will do as well. 



The Crossbill owes its peculiar mandibles to an age-long hankering for 



