COMMON CROSSBILL. 9 



although I believe they were perfectly undisturbed. About 

 the same time, a pair also built their nest in a garden in 

 this town, on an apple-tree, but were shot before they 

 had completed it." A more conclusive instance has been 

 briefly referred to by M. Necker in his valuable Memoir 

 of the Birds of Geneva, in which it is stated that a nest 

 was made in a fir, the materials were grass, moss, and por- 

 tions of fir ; the nest contained three young ones, covered 

 with feathers, which were dark green, with blackish longi- 

 tudinal marks; the mandibles not then crossed, but like 

 those of a young Greenfinch ; the parent male, red ; the 

 female green : the voice a single sharp note, frequently 

 repeated, and also when flying from one tree to another ; 

 all their actions very paroquet like. Such is the substance 

 of the brief account supplied by M. Necker ; and the 

 fact that the mandibles are not crossed over till the bird 

 is obliged to seek its own living, exhibits one of those 

 beautiful provisions of Nature, under which the formative 

 process remains suspended till the age and necessities of the 

 animal require the particular development. 



On the European continent, the Crossbills visit Spain 

 and Genoa, and are seldom seen further south, but have 

 occasionally been taken in Sicily. They inhabit the Alps 

 and Pyrenees, the pine forests of Switzerland and Germany, 

 Poland, Russia, Siberia, and eastward over Asia, even to 

 Japan. They inhabit also Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, 

 where Professor Nilsson says they build their nests on the 

 uppermost branches of firs in the winter months. M. 

 Sundeval, a Naturalist of Stockholm, who accompanied a 

 recent expedition to North Cape, believes that the Cross- 

 bills breed at all seasons. Linneus, in the account of his 

 Tour in Lapland, mentions having seen Crossbills there on 

 the 22nd of May. 



An account of the discovery of the nests and eggs of the 



