28 CROSSBILL. 



the furze is very thick, high, and difficult to get in. This 

 bird breeds every year in the furze-bushes on Munsted, 

 High-down, Headley, Elstead and many other heaths in 

 our neighbourhood. And although it is so common in the 

 winter, and so active and noisy when disturbed by dogs 

 and guns, still, in the breeding-season, it is a shy skulking 

 bird, hiding itself in thick places, much in the manner of 

 the grasshopper lark, and seldom allowing one to hear the 

 sound of its voice. And by the w^ay, the furze-wren is not 

 the only bird that breaks out into a kind of song when 

 frightened or disturbed. I have often obtained a ditty 

 from the sedge-bird by throwing a stone into a bush where 

 I knew he was lurking : and even from the nightingale, 

 by following him immediately after his arrival ; his song, 

 however, would consist only of two or three bars, preceded 

 and followed by abundance of angry ' churrs.' 



The CROSSBILL is by no means uncommon here in the 

 winter. I have seen them of every hue, from bright yel- 

 low-green to bright red, and of all the intermediate shades 

 between each of these and dull brown. Strange as it may 

 seem, the light red ones seem to be young birds, the yel- 

 low-green ones old hens, and the brown ones old cocks ; 

 at least this has been the case in those which I have had 

 an opportunity of examining.* The cry of the crossbill is 

 very peculiar; it is sharper than that of the greenfinch, and 

 louder than that of the linnet. I may however observe, 



* All the observations made on the changes of plumage in these singular 

 birds have been without a satisfactory result. Mr. Henry Doubleday, whom I 

 consider the best observer of our British birds, says, " I can say but little about 

 the colour of plumage of crossbills as depending on age : they all turn yellow in 

 confinement, and I have shot at the same time both red and yellow birds, ap- 

 parently old, and others of mixed red and yellow : after the first moult the young 

 males seem to be a reddish buff." E. N. 



