AMERICAN WHITE-WINGED CROSSBILL. 35 



both species may be simultaneously moving southward. 

 The European species was obtained near Derby, in August, 

 1845. 



This Crossbill appears to be more numerous in North 

 America than in any other part ; and to the observations 

 of Ornithologists in that country I must refer for the par- 

 ticulars of the habits of this bird, which are not to be ob- 

 served here. 



" This species," says Prince Charles Bonaparte, in the 

 second volume of his Ornithology of North America, in 

 continuation of Wilson, page 88, " inhabits during sum- 

 mer the remotest regions of North America, and it is, 

 therefore, extraordinary that it should not have been found 

 in the analogous climates of the Old Continent. Its range 

 is widely extended, as we can trace it from Labrador, west- 

 ward to Fort de la Fourche, in latitude 56, the borders of 

 Peace River, and Montagu Island on the north-west coast, 

 where it was found by Dixon. Round Hudson's Bay it is 

 common, and well known, probably extending far to the 

 north-west, as Mackensie appears to allude to it when 

 speaking of the only land bird found in the desolate re- 

 gions he was exploring, which enlivened with its agreeable 

 notes the deep and silent forests of those frozen tracts. It 

 is common on the borders of Lake Ontario, and descends 

 in autumn and winter into Canada, and the Northern and 

 Middle States. Its migrations, however, are very irregular. 

 They are seldom observed elsewhere than in pine swamps 

 and forests, feeding almost exclusively on the seeds of these 

 trees, together with a few berries. All the specimens I ob- 

 tained had their crops filled to excess entirely with the small 

 seeds of Pinus inops. They kept in flocks of from twenty 

 to fifty, when alarmed suddenly taking wing all at once, 

 and, after a little manoeuvring in the air, generally alight- 

 ing again nearly on the same pines whence they had set out, 



D 2 



