COMMON CROSSBILL AND PARROT CROSSBILL. 33 



they meet a similar family-party they appear to fraternize at once, and 

 form the nucleus of a flock, which is sometimes seen far from home as 

 early as June, wandering in search of food. It is a very pretty sight to 

 see these flocks feeding upon the berries of the mountain-ash, or stripping 

 the larch or spruce trees of their cones. In winter they are exceedingly 

 tame, and will allow the observer to approach very near and watch them 

 without showing any signs of alarm. They are very active, and when 

 busily engaged in feeding place themselves in all sorts of positions, like 

 a Tit or a Willow- Wren. They pass from tree to tree with strong 

 but undulating flight, continually calling to each other. In late winter 

 or early spring the males have a low warbling song, which reminds one 

 somewhat of that of the Starling. The female is said also to sing nearly 

 as well as the male. 



The note is short and clear, a loud shrill tsip, tsip, tsip, far louder than 

 the similar notes of the Chaffinches and Linnets by which it is surrounded ; 

 it is subject to slight modulations, occasionally sounding almost like tsup, 

 and sometimes like tsop. This note is principally uttered when the birds 

 are on the wing, and is apparently the common call-note by which the 

 flock is kept together. The call-note of the male to the female is quite as 

 loud, but more prolonged; it may be represented by the word tso, 

 occasionally modified almost to tsow on the one hand and to tsoo on the 

 other. I hav v generally heard this note when the bird was sitting alone on 

 or near the top of a pine tree. The valleys of the Upper Engadine are an 

 excellent locality in which to watch the habits of the Crossbill ; they lie 

 about six thousand feet above the level of the sea, and are hemmed in by 

 mountains which rise to twice that height. Whenever the ground is 

 smooth enough it is used as meadow, and where it is rocky it is covered 

 up to the mouth of the glaciers with larch trees intermixed with a few 

 spruce-firs and Siberian cedars (Finns cembra). It is impossible to walk 

 through the forest from Pontresina to St. Moritz, even in August and 

 September (a time of the year when birds are most skulking in their habits 

 and almost silent), without seeing many birds specially interesting to the 

 British ornithologist. At first, perhaps, the forest may look empty, not a 

 bird to be seen or heard ; for at this season forest-birds are not only gre- 

 garious but social, and you may perhaps have to walk a mile before you 

 meet with the flock. Then all at once you hear the call-notes of Titmice 

 and distinguish the Crested Tit and the continental variety of the Marsh- 

 Tit. Amongst them may be a few Chaffinches and Mealy Redpoles, and 

 almost certainly a pair of Nuthatches and Creepers. The main flock will 

 consist of Thrushes, principally Missel-Thrushes, feeding on the bilberries 

 and other ground-fruit, and rising one by one from the ground as you 

 disturb them. Then you may come across a small party of Nutcrackers, 

 which are not nearly so shy as the Thrushes, and may be seen both in the 



VOL. II. i) 



