412 THE BIRDS OF HELIGOLAND 



to cages by fanciers: some of them having been sold, the rest 

 subsequently died out. 



The breeding range of this Crossbill extends over the whole of 

 northern Asia, whence, in some years during the autumn and winter 

 months, large flights direct their course westwards as far as central 

 Europe. 



It should in this place be noted that the American White- 

 winged Crossbill (L. leucoptera) has not yet been observed in 

 Heligoland; an example in my collection was erroneously sup- 

 posed to belong to this species, but undoubtedly it belongs to the 

 Asiatic form. In England, on the other hand, it has been killed 

 repeatedly. This American species is considerably smaller than 

 that from the Old World ; has a very slender bill, and is distin- 

 guished, especially in the case of the male, in a high degree by 

 the colour, which in the Old World form is nothing more than 

 a brilliant scarlet, but in the American bird fines off to a pure 

 soft rosy-red. 



Titmouse Parus. This genus comprises about sixty species, 

 of which about a dozen belong to Europe. Of these, few besides 

 the Great and Blue Titmouse are met with, and then only as 

 exceptional occurrences, in Heligoland. The Blue Titmouse is 

 the most regular, if not the most numerous, on the arrival of 

 which one can reckon with safety every autumn; this is by no 

 means the case with the Great Titmouse, though this bird, when it 

 really does occur, appears in larger numbers than the former species. 

 When I review my long experiences as an ornithologist on this 

 island, I must allow that Titmice have occurred here during the 

 last twenty or twenty-five years in markedly smaller numbers than 

 in the preceding period of similar duration. This, however, by no 

 means justifies one in assuming that the number of individuals 

 of these species has undergone a diminution ; the comparative 

 scarcity is solely and exclusively due to altered meteorological 

 conditions which, as has been already repeatedly emphasised, 

 have become quite different from what they were during the 

 earlier period. 



