52 BIRD-LAND ECHOES. 



novelty, I suppose, one is disposed to watch the 

 bird as long as it remains in sight. Where these 

 birds habitually range they move about in large 

 companies ; but those that come down into Jersey 

 from the coniferous forests of Pennsylvania are 

 scattered individuals that have separated themselves 

 from the main body of their kind and are here asso- 

 ciated with birds of very different habits and ap- 

 pearance. They are veritable strangers here ; and 

 when, as I know has happened, they are detected by 

 mere accident associated with tree-sparrows and 

 purple finches, and not in evergreens, but in 

 leafless bushes, they present the appearance of 

 creatures out of place and ill at ease, like bashful 

 children away from home. Cross bills under such 

 circumstances become mere curiosities ; but man- 

 kind has not yet lost its taste for things out of the 

 ordinary. 



During the winter of 1856-57, which was a mod- 

 erately severe one, the cross-bills were phenomenally 

 abundant in this neighborhood and came boldly into 

 the town. They climbed about the sides of houses, 

 where there were vines or ivy, and even went so far 

 as to tap at the windows, as if demanding admission 

 or asking for food. Both species were noticed, but 

 the "white-wings were as one to a hundred," as an 

 observer noted at the time. Since then there has 

 been no such abundance of these birds. They 

 demand evergreen forests, and just in proportion as 

 these are lacking the birds forsake the locality. I 

 have positive knowledge that the cross-bills and 



