10 FRINGILLRLE. 



Common Crossbill, was supplied to Mr. Charlesworth while 

 conducting the Magazine of Natural History, by H. L. 

 Long, Esq., of Hampton Lodge, near Farnham, Surrey, 

 and appeared in the volume for the year 1839, page 236.* 

 The following are extracts : " It is now five or six years 

 since I began to observe the Crossbills ; they were at first 

 but few, and rarely seen, now they are in considerable num- 

 bers, and visible every day. If they migrate at all in the 

 summer, some of them, the young birds, perhaps, certainly 

 remain behind, for some are to be seen here every month 

 in the year. I, therefore, early in February last, urged 

 upon the attention of the labourers hereabouts, to keep a 

 diligent watch in the plantations ; and this day, April 13th, 

 I have had the satisfaction of receiving a nest with four 

 eggs, from the Holt forest in this neighbourhood. This 

 is the third nest that has been met with in the Holt ; the 

 first was taken with two eggs; and then, on the 7th of 

 April, one with four young birds, apparently above a fort- 

 night old, which would date the commencement of the 

 nest early in the month of March. These three nests were 

 all found in the thick top of a young Scotch fir, of about 

 thirteen or fourteen years' growth. I have thus the pleasure 

 of sending you the top of a young Scotch fir, with the 

 nest of a Crossbill in it, two of the eggs, and a young 

 bird, the crossing of mandibles in which is scarcely dis- 

 coverable ; such a construction of the bill would indeed 

 be useless, as long as the parent birds supplied the food. 

 The contents of the crop of the young birds appear to 

 consist, almost exclusively, of the blanched seeds of the 

 larch. 



" The nest is rather small in proportion to the size of 

 the bird, being only four inches and a half across the top, 

 outside measure, where it is widest, and the central cavity 

 * See also page 310. 



