88 THE FINCHES 



tion to the harder kind of cone the original founder of the parrot 

 clan may have had a bill not only not above the average robustness, 

 but even, in some trifling degree, below it ; only that, being a bird 

 of a more investigative turn, and possessing force of character, he did, 

 notwithstanding, having first, by some accident, discovered that he 

 liked them, succeed in extracting a seed or two of these, now and 

 again. It may have been so. It is, of course, impossible to prove it, 

 but on the other hand, it is not susceptible of disproof. 



Though there can be no reasonable doubt that the unique 

 muscular adaptation of Loxia curvirostra has been gained in relation 

 to his principal food the seeds of the fir, namely yet is he not 

 confined to this diet, but will, upon occasion any occasion where 

 an orchard presents itself condescend to apples or pears. In 

 England, which is a pomaceous rather than a coniferous land, 

 this happy pliancy of disposition may be well seen when the bird 

 is; but unfortunately the bird is rare, by which I mean that were 

 any right peasant, from the Land's End, at any rate, to the Tweed, 

 to see one, he would, no more, probably, than in the days of Matthew 

 Paris, 1 have a name to his tongue for it. In Scotland, indeed, it 

 breeds regularly in certain counties, whilst there are but few perhaps 

 of our own in which it has not been, from time to time, observed, or 

 its eggs pilfered by the scientific, or non-scientific, collector. 2 Yet this 

 I know, that one may live in the country, and grow grey, without see- 

 ing the common crossbill, though, all the while, you will hear of him 

 as "an irregular autumn or winter visitor, often then appearing in 

 large flocks, which, at the former season, devastate orchards." So 

 it was, indeed, in 1257 and 1593, as witnessed by observers whose 



1 "Aves mirabiles quce nunquam in Anglia antequam videbantur." 



2 The difference between them is this, that the first, in the name of science, does more harm 

 than the last, in the name of absurdity only, which has less stamina. But the two forms 

 approach each other so closely that, even as sub-varieties, it is not always easy to keep them 

 distinct, and as much of true science, probably, appertains to the one as to the other. Both 

 have equally grasped the fact that no two shells of the egg of any one species are marked quite 

 precisely alike, and it interests them more than the whole of Darwin, or any other problem in 

 life. It will be clear, of course, to the scientific collector proper that only the scientific collector, 

 so-called, can be here intended. Exactly, and I leave them to settle it which is which. [As 

 stated in the Preface, the writer is solely responsible for the opinions he expresses. ED.] 



