NOTES. 407 



end of a bough, some thirty feet from the ground, which 

 projected out and up from the main stem. As it so happened, 

 on the self -same branch, about four feet from the parent 

 stem, was the nest quite ready for eggs. As I climbed to 

 it the male (which had at first flown off) and female, as well 

 as a third Crossbill, were all very excited, and the owners 

 came very close to me indeed, attitudinising on the adjacent 

 branches and " chuking " their disjileasure vehemently 

 and repeatedly. Visiting this nest on April 14th I Avas dis- 

 gusted to find that squirrels had preceded me ; fragments of 

 eggs alone reposed in the cup of the nest. Externally this 

 nest had a quite marked but rather loose foundation of dead 

 Scotch fir- twigs with a few flakes of wool adhering to them, 

 then a little dried grass, then many thin strips of Scotch fir 

 bark ; while the lining was composed of tufts of wool, a few 

 Wood-Pigeon's feathers and a piece or two of string. 



Not 150 yards from this nest, Mr. Smythe found another 

 about fourteen feet from the ground and at the extreme 

 end of a dependent branch of a Scotch fir — one of a small 

 clump by the roadside. The lining in this nest was fluffed 

 up, and it never came to anything. It had far fewer twigs 

 than the first found, and was largely made of dried grass 

 with a dead leaf or so, and a few feathers, and was lined with 

 red and white cow-hair in tufts, and a piece or two of thin 

 cordage. 



Half-a-mile on, perhaps, as we approached another way- 

 side clump of firs, we heard the voices of two Crossbills 

 " chuking " persistently. They both flew across a field and 

 alighted on the summit of a larch, and finally flew off to a big 

 wood. Mr. Smythe found this nest — also in a roadside 

 tree — near the top (about thirty feet up), but about six 

 feet out on a projecting branch. It contained four nestlings 

 some four or five days old. In any case their eyes were open, 

 and their dull, dark, flesh-tinted bodies were scantily clad 

 with tufts of softly-tinted greyish-brown down. The bill, 

 quite straight, was mainly yellow, i.e., yellow round the 

 edges of the mandibles, fading into greyish-green on the upper 

 one, to flesh-tint on the lower. The interior of the mouth 

 was very noticeable ; it was a combination of vivid carmine 

 and purple, the tongue being flesh-coloured. The parents 

 never came near us as we examined them ; and when on 

 the 14th I spent some time watching them being fed, I was 

 struck with the cunning, stealthy manner in which the old 

 birds came to the nest ; not a note was heard and hardly a 

 flutter of wings as they slipped through the fir- branches to 

 the nest and out again. 



