302 A SPRING AND SUMMEE IN LAPLAND. 



As regards the crossbills, I can clearly prove, 

 by specimens killed in a state of nature, that they 

 have four distinct dresses, assumed at different 

 ages, and these I will shortly describe. The first 

 dress, after just leaving the nest till up to the first 

 moult in the autumn (in September), is greenish- 

 brown, with dark longitudinal streaks down each 

 feather ; and in this first plumage there is little 

 difference between the male and the female. In 

 the nest plumage the beaks of the young birds are 

 straight ; but the mandibles soon begin to cross 

 each other after leaving the nest ; and in young 

 birds of the year killed by me in November, the 

 beak was nearly as much crooked as in the older 

 birds. Sometimes the point of the under man- 

 dible crosses to the right, sometimes to the left. 



As soon as the first autumnal moult is com- 

 plete, the females are easily distinguished from the 

 males. The young striped feathers are very ap- 

 parent in both, all through the winter and folloyr- 

 ing spring ; but all the under parts are tinged in 

 the young males with yellow orange, and in the 

 females with bright yellow. In the males the 

 heads and rumps are orange, in the females only 

 tinged with yellow. 



In not one single young male of the year which 

 I have shot in the winter (and the birds of the 

 year are easily distinguished at this season by the 



