Breeding of the American Crossbill 
By P. B. PEABODY 
With Photographs by the Author 5 fag 
ATA for the breeding of the Crossbills of North America are so diffusively 
shelved in the great libraries of our country, and the statements of 
“Tumber-jacks”! (thus called in the West), as given in a late number 
of Brrp-Lor®, are so inadequate and so misleading, that the writer has thought 
it nO impertinence to give the readers of Brrp-Lore the summary of notes that 
have been a-gathering during the past five years. In the West we see the Crossbill 
(Loxia curvirostra stricklandi) only in July and August. It comes down from 
the regions of the conifers, at that time, accompanied by its recently fledged 
young, to fatten on the seeds of sunflowers and other like plants. (It is, of course, 
the varying and local character of the most of the conifers that makes all Cross- 
bills prone to wander.) From the (manuscript) pages of my ‘Nesting Ways of 
North American Birds’ I collate the following facts: Five (manuscript) instances 
of breeding furnished by courtesy of the National Museum, and data from 
Labrador, Maine, New York, and Colorado, give us, together, an aggregate 
breeding range of eight months. 
What is probably a typical nest of the American Crossbill is described by 
Mr. Bicknell. The locality was, Riverdale, a suburb of New York City. The nest 
was placed eighteen feet from the ground im a scantily branched cedar. The nest- 
mass was inwrought with a number of the cedar twigs. Bits of spruce made up 
the nest foundation. The next layer was of cedar bark; the third, which was 
loosely fitted in, was of various finer materials. The lining was of horsehair, 
grass, rootlets, bits of string, and a few feathers. The site of the nesting was in 
plain view from passing roadways. ‘“‘On the whole, the nest was rather shallow.” 
Let us compare an account of British nesting, by Charles Dixon: 
“The Crossbill nests in firs or other evergreens. A number of twigs are loosely 
laid together; these, with grasses and rootlets, forming the outside of the nest. All 
this is warmly lined with wool, fur, hairs and feathers” (Birds’ Nests). 
The American Crossbill is especially abundant in Nova Scotia; as one might 
expect, R. W.and Harold Tufts found over nine nests, during one season, on one 
small area. A letter from Robie Tufts describes average nests as usually well- 
concealed, above. They were always, he stated, in large trees, and saddled on a 
horizontal limb. The nest-materials were as follows: Usnea, twigs, decayed 
wood, lichens, moss and plant-down. The linings were of dead grass, usnea, moss, 
and sometimes feathers. Some nests were beautifully made, while others were 
+ Most obviously, by light of the best nest-descriptions herein given, and of the studies which many 
of us have made, in years gone by, the large globular nests of moss, with entrances at the side, —described 
by Mrs. Wright (See Brrp-Lorz, November, 1908),—are not imputable to Lowia, the servile imitator- 
rcs rine tena eg cum ilor tc cnienis of the mest (ven, mn place, 
with the one remaining birdling), which is shown in the accompanying illustration. Thus much, however, 
I can safely say, from memory: The nest was largely made of cedar and pine twigs, inwrought with fine 
cedar bark and weathered plant-strippings. And it was marvelously like a miniature of the typical 
nest of the Pinon Jay,—about three-fifths, I should say, of the size of the (normal) latter. 
(3) 
