PLATE I 

 CROSS HI LL. Loxia curvirostra 



March y///, 1896. The nest from which this Plate was taken was near the end 

 of a horizontal branch in a tall Scotch fir in the Glenmore Forest, Strathspey. 



I spent three days watching the birds before I succeeded in finding the 

 first nest. The first day was very cold and windy, with heavy snow-showers, 

 and the trees and ground were quite white. One of the keepers told me he had 

 seen the Crossbills at a certain knoll, covered with big trees, feeding on the 

 cones, so I repaired thither. I saw two pairs of birds during the day, and 

 after much difficulty succeeded in following them on three occasions to a 

 clump of trees, of which I climbed three, but only found an old nest. Next 

 day I only saw two or three old males, but could not locate any likely spot for 

 a nest. On the third day I succeeded in following one of the males for about 

 half a mile, and saw him disappear among the top branches instead of perching 

 on the extreme top, as he usually did ; however, he flew off again before I could 

 get up, so I sat down and waited. In about half an hour he came back and 

 flew into the same spot, and I distinctly heard the chirruping of the female as 

 he fed her on the nest. It was rather a bad tree to get up, as it was fairly 

 large in diameter, and had no branches at all for forty feet ; besides one side of 

 the trunk was caked with snow. I got up at last, and found the nest with three 

 eggs. It was built in the usual way a platform of Scotch fir twigs and the 

 nest in the middle, chiefly composed of hair-lichens, sheep's wool, moss, and 

 some green fir-spines, with a little deer's hair in the lining. 



Next day I returned with my camera, and got two very good photographs of 

 it by getting up the next tree with my camera and looking across at it. I 

 found other three nests on the same knoll, each containing three eggs; one 

 clutch was very highly incubated. The old birds were quite tame, and only 

 left the nest when I commenced photographing operations. 



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