734 BRITISH BIRDS. 



a great number hardly two are exactly similar; 

 they likewise vary with the season, and according 

 to the age of the bird. Edwards paints the male 

 bird of a rose colour, and the female of a yellowish 

 green, mixed more or less with brown. Both sexes 

 appear very different at different times of the year. 

 The Cross-bill is an inhabitant of the colder cli- 

 mates, and has been found as far north as Green- 

 land. It breeds in Russia, Sweden, Poland, and 

 Germany, in the mountains of Switzerland, and 

 among the Alps and Pyrenees, whence it migrates 

 in vast flocks into other countries. It sometimes is 

 met with in great numbers in this country, but its 

 visits are not regular,* as in some years it is rarely 



* We have met with it on the top of Blackstone-edge, between 

 Rochdale and Halifax, in the month of August. Mr. Dovaston 

 informs us many hundreds visited England in flights of about 

 20, 30, or more, in 1821 ; he first observed them early in August at 

 Oxford, Stratford-upon-Avon, and other places. 



" In 1254, in the fruit season, certain wonderful birds, which had 

 never before been seen in England, appeared, chiefly in the orchards. 

 They were a little bigger than Larks, and eat the pippins of the 

 apples [pomorum grana], but no other part of them, on which 

 account they were extremely prejudicial, as they deprived the trees 

 of their fruit. They had the parts of the beak crossed [cancellatas~i 

 by which they divided the apples as with a forceps or knife. The 

 parts of the apples which they left were as if they had been infected 

 with poison." Matt. Paris, p. 824. 



The following account is given by the author of Additions to the 

 Addittamenta of Matt. Paris, to whom it was supplied by Sir Roger 

 Twysden, Baronet : 



"Memorandum, that in the apple season in 1593, an immense 

 multitude of unknown birds came into England, and though the 

 fruit was then pretty well ripened, they entirely neglected its pulp, 

 swallowing nothing but the pippins [granella ipsa sive acinos], and 

 for the purpose of dividing the apple, their beaks were admirably 



