THROUGH THE WOODS. 97 



and wide in quest of food. Still keeping to the 

 conifer woods, but only in the more northern 

 forests, we may find the SISKIN (Fringilla spinus) scotch type. 

 during the summer months engaged in bringing ESere, 

 up its brood. It is about the same size as the aSentaiiy. 

 Lesser Redpole, resembles the Greenfinch in 

 colour, but is instantly distinguished by its black 

 crown, nape, and chin. Then again the call-note 

 of the male at the breeding -grounds is very 

 peculiar a long-drawn seez-zinn. The ordinary 

 call-note is very like that of the Redpole and 

 other small Finches, a rapid twitter. No nest is 

 perhaps more difficult to find than the Siskin's, 

 for it is usually hidden far up among the dark 

 crests of the firs a tiny cradle fashioned almost 

 as neatly as the Redpole's, of grass, moss, and 

 roots, and warmly lined with down. The five or 

 six eggs are pale bluish green, spotted and speckled 

 with reddish brown and gray, and occasionally 

 streaked with darker brown. Towards winter the 

 Siskin becomes gregarious and social, and draws 

 southwards, where we shall meet with it again 

 during the course of future rambles (see p. 140). 



One other bird should here be mentioned as a 

 dweller in the pine woods. This is the COMMON scotch t ype . 

 CROSSBILL (Loxia curvirostra) , distinguished from effete, 

 the other Finches by having the mandibles K?^ 3 

 crossed, and by its showy dress, the body Englan 

 plumage of the male being red, the female 

 greenish yellow, and the wings and tail of both 

 brown. Crossbills are irregular visitors to the 

 southern woods, but in the north are more or less 

 resident among the firs. They breed early, of all 

 British Finches the earliest, and the nest, made in 

 a crotch near the top of the tree by preference, is 



