CHAPTER XV 

 CROSSBILLS AT WORK 



THOUGH comparatively few persons in this country 

 have ever seen a wild crossbill, no mediaeval legend is 

 better known than that which dates its metamorphosis 

 from the scene on Calvary, and claims that its crossed 

 bill and blood-red breast were gained on the day 

 when the bird tried to wrench the nails from the feet 

 of the crucified Redeemer. Buffon termed the beak 

 of the crossbill a deformity of Nature, but Yarrell 

 watched the birds at work in captivity, and described 

 the means by which the crossed and loosely jointed beak 

 is used to extract the seeds from the close-set and 

 unyielding segments of the cones of the Northern 

 pine. 



Few birds found in these islands are more interest- 

 ing, or more suggestive of other types and climates, 

 than the crossbills. Though they belong by rights 

 to the Northern forest, they are ever ready to establish 

 and maintain themselves wherever their favourite, and 

 almost sole food in winter the pine seeds can be 

 found. They have a colony in the high Pyrenees, 

 and others in the Alps. They inhabit the great pine 

 forests which run from Central Europe across Siberia, 

 and haunt the pine mountains of Japan and the uplands 



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