36 FIELD-STUDIES OF BARER BIRDS 



the song of the Crossbill is perfectly characteristic, 

 and one impossible to confuse with that of any 

 other species ; so much so, that the very first time 

 I heard it I exclaimed : ' that's a song new to me, 

 and a Crossbill's, I believe." It was . . . The 

 Crossbill generally delivers his ditty from the very 

 summit of a larch or fir, or from some well-elevated, 

 protruding branch of the same, but very occa- 

 sionally from the air, as he describes a circle or 

 so above the tops of the trees he is frequenting. 

 Indeed, at most times is the flight of the Crossbill 

 higher than the plane of the tree-tops. The young, 

 when nearly fledged, have a sibilant chirp, which, 

 however, soon becomes a distinct chic, something 

 like that of their parents. 



Turning now to the nesting of the Crossbill in 

 Sussex in 1910, it was after all, and quite apart 

 from the special irruption of the species into Britain, 

 nothing so very marvellous to find the bird breeding 

 there. As, although since 1904 the first year I 

 started exploring the county systematically I had 

 never met with a nesting. Crossbill, though I 

 had constantly seen a few during winter, and once 

 a single bird in April, I had always looked upon the 

 outskirts of our grand fir forests of St. Leonards, 

 Tilgate, Worth, Balcombe, and Ashdown, as being 

 ideal spots for the possibility of such an event. A 

 few meagre records in fact more or less ancient, 

 without details and so valueless from different 

 sources had indicated as much. 



