4 FRINGILLIM. 



at them, in so much as diverse were stricken downe and 

 killed with often throweing at them with apples. They 

 came when the apples were rype, and went away when 

 the apples were cleane fallen. They were very good meate." 



From a note in the last edition of Bewick's History of 

 British Birds, it would appear that Crossbills were nume- 

 rous and visited other parts of England also, besides the 

 county of Kent, in the year 1593. 



J. Childrey, in his Britannia Baconica, or The Natural 

 Rarieties of England, Scotland, and Wales, published about 

 six years before Merrett's Pinax Rerum naturalium Britan- 

 nicarum, says, page 13, " In Queen Elizabeth's time a 

 flock of Birds came into Cornwall about harvest, a little 

 bigger then a sparrow, which had bils thwarted crosswise at 

 the end, and with these they would cut an apple in two at 

 one snap, eating onely the kernels ; and they made a great 

 spoil among the apples." 



In June and July, 1791, a bird-catcher at Bath caught 

 one hundred pair, which were generally sold for five 

 shillings each. In the winter of 1806, a flock inhabited for 

 a time a clump of firs in a deep -sheltered valley at Penller- 

 gare in Glamorganshire, as I learn by a communication 

 from L. "W. Dillwyn, Esq., who has favoured me with 

 many ornithological notes. In 1821, Crossbills were nume- 

 rous, and flocks were seen in various parts of the country, 

 particularly in Oxfordshire, Worcestershire, and Warwick- 

 shire. In 1828 they appeared in Westmoreland, in the 

 winter of 1829 they were numerous in Yorkshire, and 

 were, I might almost say, plentiful in various parts of 

 England from the winter of 1835 to that of 1839, pro- 

 bably induced to remain longer in this country than for- 

 merly by the greater abundance of fir plantations, to 

 which they particularly resort to avail themselves of the 

 seeds of the numerous cones, which are their principal 



