306 A SPRING AND SUMMER IN LAPLAND. 



and firs. When there are plenty of fir cones in 

 the autumn, it is pretty certain that we shall have 

 the common crossbills breeding with us that 

 winter, and the same with the parrot crossbills 

 when the cones on the pines are plentiful. But 

 this appears to happen in our forests only about 

 every third or fourth year. One curious fact I 

 have observed, which is this, that if we see large 

 flocks of crossbills in our forests in the autumn 

 (they generally appear about September or early 

 in October), we shall have very little snow that 

 winter. 



The pairing season begins about the middle of 

 January, when both male and female have a very 

 pretty song : that of the female, however, much 

 the faintest. Were it not for the difference of the 

 landscape, we might almost at this season imagine 

 ourselves in the tropical forests of the south, when 

 we watch a little flock of these birds feeding, 

 flitting from cone to cone, or climbing over them 

 with their backs downwards, like the parrots, their 

 bright-red or orange plumage reflected in the rays 

 of the afternoon sun (at which time they are gene- 

 rally busiest feeding), which even at this inclement 

 season gilds the tops of the firs for an hour or two 

 before sinking below the horizon. 



They go to nest often in the end of January, 

 always by the middle of February. The nest of 



