THE CROSSBILL 103 



THE CROSSBILL 



LOXIA CURVIROSTRA. 



Bill equalling in length the middle toe, point of the lower mandible extending 

 beyond the ridge of the upper mandible ; plumage variegated, according 

 to age and sex, with green, yellow, orange, and brick-red. Length six 

 and a half inches. Eggs bluish white, speckled with red-brown. j 



The beak of this bird was pronounced by Buffon ' an error and 

 defect of Nature, and a useless deformity '. A less dogmatic, but 

 more trustworthy authority, our countryman, Yarrell, is of a 

 different opinion. ' During a series of observations ', he says, 

 ' on the habits and structure of British birds, I have never met with 

 a more interesting or more beautiful example of the adaptation of 

 means to an end, than is to be found in the beak, the tongue, and 

 their muscles, in the Crossbill.' No one can read the chapter 

 of British Birds devoted to the Crossbill (in which the accom- 

 plished author has displayed even more than his usual amount 

 of research and accurate observation) without giving a ready 

 assent to the propriety of the latter opinion. Unfortunately the 

 bird is not of common occurrence in this country, or there are 

 few who would not make an effort to watch it in its haunts, and 

 endeavour to verify, by the evidence of their own eyes, the interest- 

 ing details which have been recorded of its habits. I have never 

 myself succeeded in catching a sight of a living specimen, and am 

 therefore reduced to the necessity of quoting the descriptions of 

 others. Family parties of this species visit — 1907 — a small wood of 

 pine trees in the valley of the Kennet near Theale some winters, as 

 well as other scattered pine-forest lands in the southern counties, 

 and across the Solway and northward it nests in suitable districts. 

 The Crossbill is about the size of the Common Bunting, and, 

 like it and the Hawfinch, is a remarkably stout bird, having a 

 strong bill, a large head, short thick neck, compact ovate body, 

 short feet of considerable strength, rather long wings, and moderately 

 large tail. Its plumage, in which green or red predominates, 

 according to the age of the bird, is much more gaudy than that 

 of our common birds, and approaches that of the Parrots, a tribe 

 which it also resembles in some of its habits. Though only occas- 

 ional visitors with us, Crossbills are plentiful in Germany, Bavaria, 

 Sweden, and Norway all the year round, and are occasionally mis- 

 chievous in orchards and gardens, on account of their partiality 

 to the seeds of apples, which they reach by splitting the fruit with 

 one or two blows of their stout bills. Food of this kind, however, 

 they can only obtain in autumn ; at other seasons, and, indeed, 

 all the year round in districts remote from orchards, they feed 

 principally on the seeds of various kinds of fir, which they extract 

 from the cone by the joint action of their beak and tongue. The 



