CEOSSBILL. 135 



ford, in the same county, and near Saffron Walden, Essex, 

 in a garden in the town, and in Orwell' Park, near Ipswich, 

 in the year 1822. Instances of its doing so are also recorded 

 in the Messieurs Sheppard and Whitear's 'Catalogue of the 

 Norfolk and Suffolk Birds;' likewise in Durham by Mr. 

 Joseph Duff; and in Devonshire a pair built at Ogwell 

 House, near Newton, the seat of Thomas William Taylor, 

 Esq., in April, 1839, as recorded by W. E. Hall Jordan, 

 Esq., of Teignmouth; and another pair in Holt Forest, 

 Hampshire; also at Broome, the seat of Sir H. Oxenden, 

 Bart., in Kent. 



They have been observed with us in some parts of the 

 kingdom in every month of the year, but mostly in those 

 of the winter and spring. They appear in all places to be 

 of a roving wandering disposition, uncertain in their move- 

 ments, appearing suddenly here and there in large numbers, 

 and as suddenly disappearing again; but doubtless they are 

 guided by some instinct, the cause or the object of which is 

 unknown to us. 



These birds are by no means shy, and are very easily 

 tamed: in one instance, namely in the aviary of Lord Bray- 

 brooke, at Audley End, near Saffron Walden, Essex, they 

 have been known to build and lay. In confinement they 

 shew their connexion with the Parrots by climbing about 

 their cage in all directions, both with beak and claws; even 

 when dead they still cling on, with the tenacity of life, to 

 the bough which has afforded them a resting-place 'the 

 ruling passion strong in death.' They are reckoned very 

 good eating on the continent, and are sold for the purpose in 

 considerable numbers. 



Their flight is undulated, and at the same time quick and 

 rapid. 



Their food consists of the seeds of the various species of 

 fir trees, as also at times those of the apple, the mountain 

 ash, the alder, the hawthorn, and others, if need be even 

 those of the thistle: sand and small fragments of stone are 

 also swallowed. In extracting the seeds from the smaller 

 cones of the larch, and others of the pines, they frequently, 

 having first cut one off from the tree with their bill, hold it 

 firmly against a branch between the claws of one or both 

 feet, after having flitted with it to some neighbouring 

 bough, or removed to the nearest convenient part of the 

 one they are on. The sound of the cracking of the cones 



