NOTES AND QUERIES. 181 
grip of it with her claws, and as soon as the stick slipped off her, she sank 
again into the nest. I then called to my servant to get above me in the 
tree, and look into the nest while I pushed the bird off. I renewed my 
efforts to dislodge the bird, which this time consented to creep to the end 
of the branch, but not to leave it. My man reported four eggs in the nest. 
Next morning, March 23rd, my servant watched near the nest for the male 
since before 6 o'clock. He was not long there when the call-note of the 
male was heard, and the female flew away with him to some distant trees 
and was fed. After 7 o’ciock the male perched on a neighbouring tree and 
was shot. I then, with my servant’s assistance, took the female, which sat 
on the nest until—after many ineffectual efforts—we got a wire noose 
tightened on her neck. She was in greenish yellow plumage, while the 
male was golden yellow, slightly inclining in some places to red, in others 
to green. The four eggs which the nest contained have a few bold, 
rounded spots and streaks of dark red-brown, with lighter reddish brown 
markings, chiefly towards the larger end: they contained embryos whose 
eyes were about the size of No. 4 shot, but I nave been able to clean them 
out, and they, as well as the birds and nest, have been forwarded to the 
British Museum. The nest, which was placed between two or more minor 
stems in an intricate part of the branch, was well overshadowed by luxuriant 
tufts of the fir-needles. It was very loosely constructed, the materials 
forming beneath a sort of tuft hanging down between the stems that 
supported the sides of the nest. It was composed externally of the smaller 
dead twigs of Scotch and spruce fir, intermixed with dried grass and other 
stems, and lined with softer dried grasses. In general appearance it might 
remind one most of a Greenfinch’s nest. On February 11th I had heard 
the male Crossbill singing on the top of an elm not far from where the 
nest was found ; this song, which was subdued, had a mixed resemblance 
to that of some Goldfinches which were answering from a neighbouring tree, 
and to the notes of a Greenfinch. The female Crossbill, which alighted 
beside him, used her beak in climbing like a Parrot. From accounts that 
I have heard of Crossbills occasionally continuing to frequent places in the 
central counties of Iceland, as well as from their breeding having been 
recorded before in a few instances, it seems probable that when these 
strange wanderers light upon a place that suits them, as in the present 
instance, they stay and breed more frequently than is imagined, though they 
cannot be considered residents in Ireland, and are often absent for years.— 
R. J. Ussuer (Cappagh, Co. Waterford). 
The Parrot Crossbill in Ireland.—We have long been looking for the 
Parrot Crossbill, Loxia pityopsittacus, in Ireland, but it is only within the 
last few weeks that its occurrence here has been fully established. From 
the demesne of Lord Rosse, at Parsonstown, Mr. Edward Williams, of 
Dublin, received for preservation, in January last, a bird which seemed to 
