402 BRITISH BIRDS. 



a cock standing on the upper-side of a twig and feeding two 

 young alternately as they hung back downwards, side by side, 

 immediately under him. The young were fed upon whole 

 seeds of the Scotch fir, and these must be regurgitated from 

 the crop of the old bird since they are only fed at intervals, 

 and evidently a number of seeds are given to them at one 

 feeding ; it is not likely that so many seeds could be kept in 

 the old bird's mouth ; moreover, I have seen the young fed 

 a considerable time after the old ones have finished feeding 

 themselves. The young were about a month old, and the 

 tips of the mandibles had commenced to grow up and down 

 and overlap each other. They seemed to be insufficiently 

 strong to cut off a cone or to open a closed one, but the young 

 frequently pecked at the half-opened cones as they hung on 

 the trees and appeared to extract the seeds ; they also eat 

 lichen, and cut off oak-galls and beechmast and held them 

 down with a foot and pecked at them. 



Crossbills are very fond of drinking, and they come down 

 to a pond in a corner of this wood all through the day to 

 drink. Their sociability is very marked — a pair were building 

 within a few yards of a clump of trees in which was a con- 

 siderable flock of " non-breeding " birds, while already on 

 April 4th two broods of young had joined company and were 

 flying about together, making, with their parents, a respectable 

 flock of eleven. 



H. F. Witherby. 

 In Kent. 

 Crossbills were seen in the woods on Bostal Heath repeatedly 

 during February and March, and on March 19th a nest was 

 found at the end of a bough some thirty feet up a Scotch fir. 

 The nest was kept under observation by Mr. P. B. Smythe, 

 and on March 26th the bird was seen to be sitting. Another 

 nest had a bird incubating on the same date. There were 

 some twelve to fifteen pairs of birds in these woods at the time. 



J. Beddall Smith. 



In Staffordshire. 

 On March 14th, 1910, I found a Crossbill's nest, nearly 

 completed, at Stretton Hall, Stafford. The nest was in an 

 isolated clump of Scotch firs, well away from the trunk, 

 about thirty feet from the ground, and easily seen from below. 

 The two Crossbills were in another tree close by, but as soon 

 as I began to clirnb to the nest one bird flew to the bough that 

 held the nest, chirping loudly, and then both flew right away. 

 The nest was composed of coarse grass and a little sheep's 



