292 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 



"This species is a regular inhabitant of almost all our pine 

 forests situated north of 40*^, from the beginning of September to 

 the middle of April. It is not improbable that some of them re- 

 main during the summer within the territory of the United States 

 to breed. Their numbers must, however, be comparatively few, as 

 I have never yet met with any of them in summer, though lately 

 I took a journey to the Great Pine Swamp beyond Pocano Moun- 

 tain, in Northampton County, Pa., in the month of May, expressly 

 for that purpose ; and ransacked, for six or seven days, the 

 gloomy recesses of that extensive and desolate morass, without 

 being able to discover a single Crossbill. In fall, however, as 

 well as in winter and spring, this tract appears to be their favorite 

 rendezvous ; particularly about the head waters of the Lehigh, the 

 banks of the Tobyhanna, Tunkhannock, and Bear Creek, where I 

 have myself killed them at these seasons. They then appear in 

 large flocks, feeding on the seeds of the hemlock and white-pine ; 

 have a loud, sharp, a^d not unmusical note ; chatter as they fly ; 

 alight, during the prevalence of deep snows, before the door of the 

 hunter, and around the house, picking off the clay with which 

 the logs are plastered, and searching in corners where urine, or any 

 substance of a saline quality, had been thrown. At such times, 

 they are so tame as only to settle on the roof of the cabin when 

 disturbed, and, a moment after, descend to feed as before. They 

 are then easily caught in traps, and will frequently permit one to 

 approach so near as to knock them down with a stick. Those 

 killed and opened at such times are generally found to have the 

 stomach filled with a soft, greasy kind of earth or clay. When 

 kept in a cage, they have many of the habits of the Parrot ; often 

 climbing along the wires, and using their feet to grasp the cones in, 

 while taking out the seeds." 



Nuttall says of its breeding habits, — 



" They often breed in winter in more temperate countries, as in 

 January and February ; and the young fly in March. The nest 

 is said to be fixed in the forks of fir-trees ; and the eggs, four or 

 five, are of a greenish-gray, with a circle of reddish-brown spots, 

 points, and lines, disposed chiefly at the larger end : the lines also 

 often extend over the whole surface of the egg" 



