CATALOGUE OF CANADIAN BIRDS. 463 
hand. Two or three pairs were apparently already mated, for they 
were detached from the main flock, each by itself. The males 
were singing very loudly a twitter somewhat resembling that of 
the American goldfinch, but coarser. The females were shy, flying 
covertly from tree to tree and darting through the foliage to avoid 
the officious advances of the males, who were following them. The 
latter flew in broad circles above the females, with slowly beating 
wings, singing continuously, and finally settling on quivering, out- 
stretched wings in a tree top. I visited this locality again on the 
28th May, and was fortunate enough to find three nests of the 
white-winged crossbill. On this date the large flocks had scattered 
out, and the birds were mostly seen singly or in pairs. Two or 
three companies of a dozen or so were noted, these probably being | 
non-breeders or yearlings. The first nest was found by spotting 
a pair of birds and closely watching their movements. They were 
feeding when first noted, but in a few minutes I suddenly lost sight 
of the female, although the male remained in the vicinity, frequently 
uttering the metallic call-note previously described. After waiting 
some time, I proceeded to the tree where the female was last seen. 
On vigorously shaking the tree several times she flew out of a dense 
clump of branches and perched a few yards off, chirping solicitously. 
Both birds soon left the vicinity and did not return while I remained. 
The nest was situated close to the trunk, ten feet above the ground, 
in a mass of foliage so thick as to entirely hide it from view. It con- 
tained two eggs about one-third incubated. These are ovate and 
measure .86x.61, .84x.60. The ground colour is an extremely 
pale tint of blue. One egg has scattering ill-defined spots and 
blotches of pale chocolate. The other egg has numerous very pale 
lavender markings, and, mostly at the larger end, a number of 
spots and four large blotches of dark seal-brown. The second nest 
was found through locating a male bird by its call-note, and then 
tapping every tree in the vicinity with a stick. The female was thus 
flushed from her nest, which was twelve feet up near the top of a 
dwarf spruce. It was embedded in a mass of foliage against the 
stem of the tree, much as in the case of the first nest. It contained 
two pipped eggs and one newly hatched young. The parents evinced 
more solicitude in this case, chirping and flying from tree to tree. 
The third nest was found similarly, though the female left the nest 
unobserved and I had to wait until she returned to be able to locate 
