128 THE FINCHES 



" brilliant rosy red " and invisibility ! No, but there is in nature as 

 how should there not be ? a large amount of ordinary concealment, 

 as well as of mere accidental resemblance, of which every creature 

 even, probably, a sheldrake or scarlet flamingo at times gets the 

 benefit. To distinguish between this and true special protective 

 resemblance, acquired through natural selection, is what numbers 

 of naturalists have not yet learned to do or to try to do. 



Something may here be said as to the crossbill's general habits of 

 feeding. Sometimes he will extract the seed whilst swinging head- 

 downwards on the cone, as it hangs, but more frequently he bites it 

 off at the stalk, and feasts at leisure on the nearest convenient branch. 1 

 Not seldom he flies to another tree with it, holding it with the point 

 forwards, or he may even fly down after a cone that drops, and rifle it 

 where it lies, on the ground. 2 There, too, he will pick up seeds that have 

 escaped from their sheathings, like any ordinary bird. 3 Either in the 

 tree, or under it, when the cone is detached, he holds it with one foot, 

 like a parrot 4 (but without lifting it), and then, with his hooked beak, 

 presents a very parrot-like appearance. It is also interesting, as 

 showing how habit tends to follow structure, to know that he uses 

 the beak as a parrot does, in climbing ; 5 for no one can suppose that it 

 has been thus abnormally modified in relation to such an employment 

 of it. With all the bird's powers of extracting seeds scientifically, 

 some of the sheaths prove too hard for him to open without previous 

 biting and gnawing, whilst some he must even tear to pieces. It 

 seems curious that, with others all about, he should waste time in 

 doing this, but such is the case. That insects, also, occasionally form 

 a part of the crossbill's diet has already been mentioned. Saxby thus 

 describes his modus operandi : " In summer the elm-leaves were often 

 nearly destroyed by large numbers of aphides which, gathering upon 

 the underside, caused each leaf practically to dry up and shrivel. 



1 Naumann, Naturgeschichte der Vogel Mitteleuropas, iii. ; Ussher and Warren, Birds of 

 Ireland. 2 Cornish, Animal Artisans. 



3 Naumann, op. cit. 4 Naumann, op. cit. ; Cornish, Animal Artisans. 



5 Naumann ; Cornish, op. cit. 



