TWELVE WINTER BIRDS. 305 



based upon some important and noticeable character 

 possessed by the species. 



Perhaps no birds are more erratic in their move- 

 ments than the cross-bills. They appear and disappear 

 from a given locality in the most unexpected manner. 

 In Indiana they are most likely to be found during 

 severe weather in January and February. They go 

 in flocks of from six to forty individuals, usually flying 

 high in air and for great distances at a time. While 

 on the wing they keep up, almost continually, a loud 

 clear call note, which is quite similar to that made by 

 a young chicken in distress. Always alighting in the 

 tops of pines or other evergreen trees, each individual 

 chooses a cone and immediately begins to extract the 

 seeds. 



While thus feeding they are extremely gentle and 

 social, easily approached, and may even be knocked 

 down with sticks. In the old barbarous collecting 

 days I have shot as many as five or six from a single 

 tree without causing the remainder of the flock to take 

 flight. The two species are alike in .all their habits, 

 climbing from cone to cone like parrots, head down or 

 head up at will; twittering as they feed like many 

 other sparrows ; and finally, having eaten their fill, 

 with one impulse they hurry out of sight, to be gone, 

 it may be, until another year rolls by. 



They nest throughout the coniferous forests of the 

 northern United States and Canada and in the moun- 

 tains of the southern States, notably in North Caro- 

 lina and Tennessee. A few of the young of the 

 previous season either remain in Indiana throughout 

 the summer, or visit here at that season, for I have 



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