THE CROSSBILL. 277 



frost, and once since ; and now this time, when there certainly 

 has been severer frost than usual," vol. ii. p. 153. Mr. R. Ball 

 informed me in 1842, that during his residence at Youghal, this 

 species was known to him as occurring but once in the scuth, 

 upwards of thirty years ago, when it committed great devastation 

 in the orchards : its appearance in the south of the county of 

 Cork, about that period, has been reported to me by others, 

 who state that it was looked upon as an extraordinary rarity ; — 

 probably the same flight of birds is alluded to by all. M'Skim- 

 min, in his History of Carrickfergus, mentions a flock being seen 

 there in July, 1811. Mr. Ensor, in an article contributed to the 

 6th volume of the Magazine of Natural History (p. 81), dated Ar- 

 dress, county of Armagh, remarks : — "There was a flight of these 

 birds in my plantations for weeks in 1813 or 1814."* In 1821, 

 when crossbills were so abundant in Scotland, they visited Ireland 

 also, and some were killed about Belfast. A venerable friend has 

 from Iris early years known them as occasional winter visitants to 

 the neighbourhood of this town, and has captured them, when 

 feeding, by means of fishing-rods smeared with bird-lime. 



Since my own attention has been given to the subject, the crossbill 



* Loxia coccothraustes is the scientific name applied to the bird referred to, but 

 from the observation that it is significantly called " cross-beak," it seems to me war- 

 rantable to conclude that Loxia curvirostra is meant. 



Mr. Kobert Millen has mentioned to me, that near Ballyclare (co. Antrim), about 

 the year 1814, he became possessed of a crossbill by flinging a stone at a bird in a larch 

 fir, which he believed from its colour to be a green-linnet. It was only stunned 

 by the blow of the stone, and soon recovered. He kept it as a pet bird for about nine 

 months, and provided fir cones as food, from which the seeds were adroitly extracted. 



The Rev. Dr. Walsh, in his work entitled "A Residence at Constantinople," men- 

 tions his having obtained a crossbill {Loxia curvirostra) just after its being snared in 

 a tree near that city, and states, that " it became as familiar as a parrot, sat on my 

 shoulder while I wrote, and whistled to me for food. I discovered that it [the 

 species ?] particularly frequented Turkish cemeteries, and was most commonly met 

 with among the cypress trees. I collected, therefore, some of the cypress cones, and 

 whenever he whistled, I presented him with one. He took it with great dexterity 

 in one of his claws, and holding it up, he hopped to his perch on the other leg. He 

 then split open with his cross beak the tough divisions of the cone with a force, and got 

 out the seeds with a dispatch, that mandibles of any other construction could never 

 accomplish. I kept this familiar and interesting bird for several months, till a rapa- 

 cious kite, hoveriug over the palace garden, made a stoop, and destroyed it. I called 

 it Nepou7roXt, its modern Greek name, and it answered to the sound by a whistle." 

 vol. ii. p. 111. 



