i 72 THE COMMON CROSSBILL. 



seeds only, feed the young from the crop ; those which eat 

 insects, from the bill. Their nests are generally elaborate, 

 and the female receives but little help from the male in the 

 work of incubation. This and the following group may be 

 said to comprise the Cage or Singing birds. All birds which 

 eat seeds may be tamed at any period. 



ADDITIONAL. With LINN^US, and most of the elder natural 

 ists, the order Passer es was a very comprehensive one, including 

 indeed not only the Sparrow and Finch tribes, as above given, 

 but nearly all the smaller kinds of birds, differing as they do very 

 widely in habits and characteristics ; it is, therefore, as a term of 

 distinction, of but little practical utility, nor are the old subdi- 

 visions of this order much more satisfactory. The arrangement 

 adopted by BECHSTEIN seems to be entirely arbitrary, and the dis- 

 tinctions between the birds of this and the succeeding section do 

 not seem to be very clearly marked : the term Conirostres, conic 

 beaks, used in the quinary system of Mr. VIGORS, would perhaps 

 have been better than Passeres, a term which, if used at all, 

 should have taken in all the birds of the two sections. 



(A) EUROPEAN GROSBEAKS. 

 65. THE COMMON CROSSBILL. 



Loxia Curvirostra, LIN. Bee croise, BUF. Der Fichten Kreuzs schriabel, 



BECH. 



Description. This remarkable bird, which is about the size 

 of a Bullfinch, is six inches eight lines long, of which the 

 tail measures two inches and a quarter. The beak is almost 

 one inch long, with this peculiarity, that the upper mandible 

 bending downwards, and the lower mandible upwards, cross 

 each other : hence arises the name of the bird. The upper 

 mandible sometimes crosses on the right, and sometimes on the 

 left side, according to the direction given it when in youth ; 

 it is soft and yielding. The beak is brown, of a lighter hue 

 underneath ; the iris and the feet nut brown ; the shin bones 

 eight lines high. 



The changes of colour, which are falsely reported to take 

 place three times a year, are briefly the following : 



The young male, which is greenish brown, with a partial 

 hue of yellow, is, after the first moulting, light red, with the 

 exception of its black quill and tail feathers. This hue is darker 

 on the upper than on the under part of the body. The change 

 generally takes place in April and May; it is not till the 



