SUSSEX CROSSBILLS 33 



selves away solely by dropping to the ground those 

 cones which they have lopped off, and from which 

 they have just gleaned provision. Otherwise they 

 steal and creep about like mice among the thickly- 

 foliaged tree-tops, where, unless the light plays on 

 them at certain angles, even the showy red males 

 are not always easy to see immediately. 



Slightly cumbersome in minor details, as for 

 instance when solidly perching in a tree, when the 

 top-heavy-looking head, the then-apparently-thin 

 neck and erect, stiff posture, all combine to give 

 them a woodeny appearance, Crossbills, at any rate 

 when feeding, are seen quite at their best, and lack 

 nothing in point of elegance. All their actions are 

 then very pleasant to behold, and, so long as quiet 

 is the order of your going, you shall sit and see 

 at really close range, until, in fact, the birds cry 

 enough of that special banqueting-board. Clinging 

 to the branches in various acrobatic attitudes, they 

 inspect the cones with the eye of an expert, and 

 when, soon, one is detected full of seed, they chop 

 it off cleverly at the base of its short stem with their 

 curved and twisted bill, which is wondrously 

 adapted for such an enterprise ; then, securing 

 their booty firmly with one foot, they take their 

 fill of food, after that letting the now worthless 

 husk fall suddenly to the ground. Sometimes a 

 volley of cones fall together from, as it were, a 

 dozen or more marksmen ; at others there is heard 

 a regular, subdued feu de joie, as one cone after 



D 



