402 PERCHING BIRDS. 



with ashy bases to the feathers ; the wings and tail being dusky brown, with the 

 feathers edged with rose-colour. The female has the general colour of the upper- 

 parts ashy grey ; the crown of the head and sides of the face golden olive-yellow, 

 spreading on to the mantle ; and the throat and under surface ashy grey, washed 

 with golden-olive. 



These are sufficiently distinguished from all other members of 

 the avian class by the crossing of the tips of the two mandibles of 

 the beak. In general conformation the beak is hard, strong, and thick at the 

 base, with the lower mandible curving upwards, and its point crossing that of 

 the upper one; a structural conformation enabling these birds to extract with 

 facility the seeds deeply buried beneath the overlapping scales of the fir-cones 

 on which they feed. This peculiar structure is, however, developed only in the 

 adult, young birds in the nest having the beak of normal conformation. As 

 regards other characters, the crossbills have the wings long and pointed, and the 

 tail forked and relatively short in proportion to the wings. 



While the males of the crossbills are gaily attired in scarlet crimson and 

 orange plumage; green and yellow are the predominating hues of the females. 

 Crossbills inhabit the pine -forests of both the Old and New Worlds, extending 

 from Siberia to the Himalaya in the Eastern Hemisphere, and in the Western 

 ranging from Arctic North America into Mexico. 



When wandering through the pine-forests of Northern Scotland or Western 

 Norway, the cry of the crossbill (Loxia curvirostra) often greets the traveller 

 from amongst the fir-cones, directing his attention to the bright-plumaged birds 

 skilfully extracting the seeds of the conifers, whilst hanging gracefully in every 

 variety of attitude. One such scene is firmly imprinted on our memory ; where, 

 while the edge of a pine-wood, richly carpeted with blaeberries, lay in the back- 

 ground, in the foreground a little flock of crossbills were swinging gaily round the 

 branches of an isolated forest tree; and visitors to Bournemouth will recall 

 memories of these birds among the pines which form their favourite nesting-resort. 

 One of the most recent descriptions of the habits of the crossbill in the nesting- 

 season is by Mr. Ussher, who writes that he has had unusually good opportunities 

 of observing these birds, since no less than four pairs built within a short distance 

 of his house. Among them, one was a male in the immature yellow plumage, 

 while the other three cock-birds were red, or red mingled with brown. Early in 

 March one of these crossbills was observed carrying twigs to the top of a Scotch 

 fir, in which the nest was subsequently discovered, although it could only be seen 

 from the ground by a person standing immediately below it and looking straight 

 up through the tree against the sky. " This tree," writes Mr. Ussher, from, whose 

 description the remainder of this account is abbreviated, " is the outer of a group, 

 and is bare of living branches to within a short distance of its top, which consists 

 of a mass of green, bending over from the west winds, in the midst of which the 

 nest was built among the thick tufts. The finder saw the crossbills visit it 

 frequently with building materials ; and I saw several times the birds fly to 

 and from it, and recognised the male by his redness. This pair probably reared 

 their young in safety, for, on 10th May, a pair of crossbills were seen feeding 

 their young on larch-trees in the vicinity of this nest. A second nest was subse- 



