404 BRITISH BIRDS. 



of February they began to sing, and early in March we 

 noticed some in pairs, and on March 6th I saw a cock with 

 some duck's feathers in its bill. Some nests in the tops of 

 the pines we take to be theirs, but have not actually seen the 

 birds visit them. 



J. M. Wilkinson. 



In Surrey. 

 As it is of interest to report all cases of the nesting of the 

 Crossbill, I give below an extract from a letter I have received 

 from Petty Officer E. Whibley — a very reliable field- 

 naturalist — regarding the nesting of a pair of Crossbills 

 near Witley, Surrey. 



Mr. Whibley writes : — " You would like to know about 

 a Crossbill's nest which I found on March 5th. The nest 

 was in a fir-tree growing on the steep bank of the railway- 

 cutting near Witley Station. It was resting on the fork 

 of the outer end of a branch about thirty feet from the ground, 

 and was composed of twigs outside, then coarse grass, and 

 lined with what appeared to be shredded sedgy grass. 



" The hen bird was on the nest, and sat very close ; she 

 went off very quietly when I climbed along the branch, and 

 I heard no alarm-note, nor saw any more of her. There were 

 three eggs much like those of the Greenfinch in the nest. 

 The cock bird, which was of a dull red on the breast and lower 

 part of the back, I saw just before I got up to the nest. 



" The fir-cones of the tree in which was the nest were not 

 touched, but about twenty yards away the ground was 

 littered with cones which .the Crossbills had been working 

 at." 



H. Lynes. 



On February 19th, 1910, my attention was attracted by the 

 large numbers of fir-cones (evidently " worked upon " by 

 Crossbills) scattered over the ground in a district where 

 coniferous trees abound, in Surrey, within fifteen miles of 

 London. On the 26th I observed a single pair of birds in 

 a small wood and from fifty to sixty in a " toll " of fir-trees 

 a mile away. All were busy feeding at the cones of Scotch 

 pine and larch. 



On March 5th the birds were equally numerous, but on 

 this occasion a pair were carrying dead pine-twigs to a lateral 

 branch at the top of a pine sixty feet high, and depositing them 

 on it some seven feet from the trunk. From below, even with 

 binoculars, it was impossible to distinguish the nest, which 

 must have been in the first stages of its construction. A 



