Breeding of the American Crossbill 5 
of that entrancing study of nesting habit, with the Crossbills, which became for 
me, during those brief Wyoming years, quite little short of a veritable passion; 
but the expected never would happen! 
And yet the unexpected did, thus: On the crest of a cafion-margin, at dusk of 
a heavenly evening, the 17th of April, I followed, crazily, in the wake of a con- 
tinual disappearing of that rarest of Wyoming birds-of-transience-and-passage, 
the Montana Junco. Throwing down, at last, all impedimenta—camera, hand- 
bag, field-glass and all, —I ran, finally, down into a maze of cedars, into which my 
- bird had disappeared, for the night. Resting a moment, I heard behind me, 
a soft, hushing, whir of little wings. ‘Then a hysterical “Chull-chill-chill” cut 
into the still air. My delight was boundless when I recognized, as the source of 
SHOWING SITE OF CROSSBILL’S NEST IN TOP OF LEFT-HAND TWIN-TREE 
that unfamiliar sound, a female Crossbill. Hastening away and back for my 
field-glass, I found, on my return, that the Crossbill had disappeared. Search,— 
intent, exhaustive, painful, revealed nothing. 
I turned homeward. A dozen steps in advance, my sight turned skyward. 
A slight nest loomed small in a little pine beside me, climbers were beaten against 
the trunk; and instantly, “with many a flirt and flutter,” with many a “Chall- 
chill-chill,” a Crossbill left that nest. Then, as I neared the nest level, climbing 
like any eager ten-year-old, the coward flew away. There were two tender young 
in that scoop of a twiggy, bark-lined nest. 
