GROSSBEAK AND CROSSBILLS. 201 



GROSSBEAK AND CROSSBILLS. 



"TT7~E have here a group of visitors to oar shores from other lands, 

 not from the tropics, as our readers might infer from the 

 richness of their plumage, and their general resemblance to the parrot 

 tribe, but from cold northern climes, where they make their home in 

 the gloomy forests of pine and fir. Like the species constituting our 

 three previous groups, they are all Passerine birds, but form a separate 

 genus, called Loxia, from the Greek word loxos curved or oblique, 

 which name has been applied to them with reference to the peculiar 

 shape of their beaks. These birds have large roundish heads, thick 

 necks, stoutish bodies, short and strong legs, and long curved claws. 

 Their wings are rather long, and their tails short. 



The Pine Grossbeak is placed by some ornithologists in the genus 

 Pyrrhula, with the Common Bullfinch, which it greatly resembles both 

 in the shape of its beak and its general form; but others, following 

 in the steps of the great Linnasus, have included it with the Cross- 

 bills, as it agrees with these birds in many of its habits, and also 

 in the colouring and changes of its plumage. 



The Crossbills are remarkable for the curious structure of their 

 beaks, the points of the mandibles crossing each other at the extremity, 

 in some specimens from left to right, and in others from right to 

 left. The learned Buffon speaks of this peculiarity as a defect and 



a deformity, but the investigations of later naturalists have shown that 



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