38 BRITISH BIRDS. 



Loxia falcirostra, Lath. Ind. Orn. i. p. 371 (1790). 



Curvirostra leucoptera (GmeL), Wils. Am. Orn. iv. p. 48, pi. xxxi. fig. 3 (1811). 



Crucirostra leucoptera (Gmel.}, Brelim, Isis, 1827, p. 720. 



The first record of the occurrence of the European White-winged 

 Crossbill in the British Islands is that of Templeton, who, in a communi- 

 cation to the Linnean Society, stated that a specimen had been shot at 

 Grenville, near Belfast, on the llth of May, 1802. Although the speci- 

 men has apparently been lost, a coloured drawing of it is still in existence, 

 and assisted Thompson in his identification of the species. In 1843 

 Mr. Rodd records, in the ( Zoologist' for that year (p. 142), a second 

 specimen killed a few years previously at Larrigan, in Cornwall.' 



In the autumn of 1845 there appears to hare been a remarkable 

 migration of European White- winged Crossbills to this country ; for a 

 female was shot out of a flock of about fifteen near Brampton, Cumberland, 

 in November, and two or three others were killed about the same time and 

 place (Hancock, Cat. Birds Northumb. and Durh. p. 50). They appear to 

 have remained in this country during the winter ; for in May 1846 a flock 

 was seen at Thetford, in Norfolk, and one specimen was killed, whilst a 

 second was obtained in the neighbourhood of Bury St. Edmunds *. 



Another specimen, a young bird, is recorded by Yarrell as having been 

 shot about this time by Doubleday in his garden at Epping. A second 

 example occurred in Ireland in 1868, and was mentioned in the ' Zoologist ' 

 for that year (p. 1376) by Mr. Blake Knox. It was obtained in county 

 Dublin in July or August. The occurrence of this species in Scotland is 

 very doubtful, as the " White-winged Crossbills " which have at various 

 times been obtained there have not been sufficiently well identified. 



Owing to the imperfect identification of the species, it is difficult to 

 determine the exact number of specimens of the American form of the 

 White-winged Crossbill which have found their way to our shores. As 

 this species is said to be common throughout the year in Newfoundland, 

 and is occasionally found in Greenland, it may reasonably be expected to 

 visit our northern coasts. The earliest known instance of its occurrence 

 in the British Islands is that of a female now in the Strickland collection, 

 Cambridge, and which was obtained near Worcester in 1838 (Salvin, Cat. 

 B. Strickl. Coll. p. 203) . In 1845 Mr. E. B. Fitton exhibited, at a meeting 

 of the Zoological Society, a second example, an adult male found by him 

 on the shore at Exmouth on the 17th of September of that year. A third 

 specimen, a female, was caught in the rigging of a ship which came into 



* The occurrence of several examples of this species at Drinkston, in Suffolk, in 1849 

 (Bree, ' Zoologist,' 1849, p. 2419), quoted "by Harting in his ' Handbook of British Birds/ 

 p. 116, is a myth, the record probably referring to the birds mentioned above as killed in 

 that district in 1846. 



