298 NOTES ON THE 
LOXIA LEUCOPTERA Gmetin. (522.) 
WHITE-WINGED CROSSBILL. 
I found a few specimens of this species in Mr. Shroeder’s 
collection in St. Paul as long ago as 1865, and later in Mr. 
Howling’s of this city, but I have never met with it in the 
flesh myself. All those I saw in either collection were said to 
have been collected in this State. They were nearly all 
mature birds and readily identified. 
Dr. Brown describes the nest as saucer-shaped, formed of 
lichens, encased in spruce twigs, lined with hair and bark 
shreds, four inches in diameter with a cavity an inch and a 
half deep. The egg is pale blue, spattered at large end with 
fine dots of black and ashy-lilac; taken at New Brunswick. 
Mr. M. Chamberlain, of St. Johns, New Brunswick, while 
moose hunting in the third week in January, found himself 
“face to face with a White-winged Crossbill on her nest, the 
high bank of snow under me bringing my head about level 
with the nest. * * * The nest was placed in a fork of one of 
the main limbs of the tree and was composed externally of the 
long, gray moss which grew in large patches on most of the | 
trees in this vicinity, and so much resembled these patches of 
moss as to be difficult of detection. In the inside was a lining 
of softer moss, and between the lining and the exterior were 
small twigs interlaced. In the nest were three eggs of a 
bluish-white ground color, having dashes of red upon the 
larger end.” ; 
The bill so wondrously formed, as to appear deformed, does 
not naturally differ in appearance from that of the Red 
Crossbill. It is, as with the last mentioned species, used for 
climbing like that of the parrot, as well as penetrating cones 
of the pine and other coniferous trees for the nuts and seeds. 
It is reported as found in several different timbered sections 
within our borders at long intervals, but with what reliability 
I cannot be assured. 
SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 
Bill greatly compressed, acute towards the point; male 
carmine-red, tinged with dusky across the back; sides of body 
under the wings streaked with brown; from middle of belly to 
tail coverts whitish, the latter streaked with brown; scapulars, 
wings and tail, black; broad bands on wings across the ends 
of the greater and median coverts and spots on the ends of 
the inner tertiaries, white. 
Length, 6.25; wing, 3.50; tail, 2.50. 
Habitat, northern North America. 
