34 FIELD-STUDIES OF RARER BIRDS 



the other rattles down to the pine-needle-carpeted 

 soil. Occasionally odd birds may be seen clinging 

 to a cone upside down, and extracting seeds that 

 way. I have, too, constantly noted members of 

 different flocks settle in some deciduous tree such 

 as a beech or birch lop off a thin twig, obviously 

 for sheer sport, and drop it immediately. It is 

 pleasant, also, to regard a flock, now one bird at a 

 time, now two or three together a combination 

 of green and drab, red and orange fly down to 

 some roadside puddle or small field-pond (by some 

 ornithologists it has been erroneously asserted that 

 Crossbills only drink from flowing water) to slake 

 their thirst, when to the ignoramus they would 

 appear then more than ever like so many dwarfed 

 parrots let loose on the country-side. 



Sometimes, for no suitable or apparent reason, 

 a flock will take sudden panic, whereupon nearly 

 all scurry out of the feeding-tree a short way, but 

 return to their self -interrupted feast almost at once. 

 When at last they decide to go for good, there is 

 generally a greedy straggler or so left behind still 

 eating. Eventually, however, these follow on in 

 the wake of the now fast-receding flock. The 

 flight, though always easily recognised, may best 

 be described as a compromise between that of the 

 Greenfinch and Hawfinch, albeit not so lilting as 

 that of the latter ; nor, indeed, is the Crossbill 

 anything like so gross or thickset as the clumsy 

 Hawfinch. 



