124 



NATURALISTS CALENDAR. 



[1853 



Notices ol Bock*. 



Cage and Chamber Birds, th ir Natural History, Habits, Food, Dis- 

 eases, Management, and Modes of Capture, from the German ofT. M. 

 Bechstein, M. D., with Additions by H. G. Adams, incorporating the 

 who's of Sw et's British Warblers, with numerous Illustrations. 

 H. G. Bohn, London. 



This is one of the most attractive of Bohn's illustrated library. The 

 descriptions are given in popular language, -with only the occasional 

 intermixture of technical or scientific terms. The book thus com- 

 mends itself to the attention of the class who are most likely to be in- 

 terested in the habits and peculiarities of forest warblers. 



It is precise and fuD iu its description of the details of the food , 

 breeding, diseases, mode of catching and attractive qualities of the 

 beautiful creatu-es to which its pages are devoted. It is embellished 

 with numerous well executed woodcuts, and is really in all respects a 

 charming book. We select, as an illustration of the general style of 

 the work, the following description of that well known curious bird, 

 the common crossbill. Page 172. 



Ths Common Crossbill. Zoxia curvirostra Lin. Bee croise, B>f. 

 Der Fichten Kreidz schnabel, Beeh. 



Description. — This remarkable bird, which is about the size of a 

 bullfinch, is six inches eight lines long, of which the tail measures two 

 inches and a quarter. The beak is almost one inch long, with this pe- 

 culiarity, that the upper mandible bending downwards, and the lower 

 mandible upwards, cross each other : hence arises the name of the bird. 

 The upper mandible sometimes crosses on the right, and sometimes 

 on the left side, according to the direction given it when in youth ; it 

 is soft and yielding ; the beak is brown, of a lighter hue underneath ; 

 the iris and" the fee; nut brown ; the shin bones eight lines high. The 

 changes of colour, which are falsely reported to take place three times 

 a year, are briefly the following : — The young male, which is green- 

 ish brown, with a partial hue of yellow, is, a ter the first mouliiug, 

 light red, with the exception of its black quill and tail feathers. This 

 hue is darker on the upper than on the under part of the body. 



The change generally takes place in April and May ; it is not till the 

 second moulting that these colours pass into the usual greenish yel- 

 low. The red crossbills are therefore the males of one year old ; the 

 greenish yellow the old birds. 



The females are either grey all over, witli a liitle green on the head, 

 breast, and rump, or irregularly speckled with the same colours. An 

 old male then, as may always be observed iu the Tliuringian Forest, 

 answers to the following description It is, however, necessary that 

 the birds should be taken from the nest, and not at the season of de- 

 parture when no two exactly resemble one another in colour. This 

 ari-es from the different times at which they have moulted, which, as 

 is well known, has a great influence on the colour of birds. The fore- 

 head, cheeks, and eyebrows are green or greenish yellow, spotted with 

 white ; the jack siskin green ; the vent white, spotted with grey ; the 

 shank feathers grey. All over the bird, however, the dark grey co- 

 lour of the feathers shine through the green and yellow, and gives all 

 the parts, especially the back, a spotty appearance, for in reality, all 

 the feathers are grey, and only their poiuts yellow or green. The 

 wings are blackish ; the small coverts green ; the two larger rows, as 

 well as the last quill feathers, bordered at the end with whitish yel- 

 low. All the quill feathers, however, as well as the black feathers of 

 the tail, have a very narrow border of green. If the crossbills are grey 

 or speckled, they are young ; if red, they are one year old, and have 

 just moulted ; it carmine, they are just about to moult for the second 

 time ; if spotted with red and yellow, they are two years old, and in 

 full feather. All these differences may be noticed except at the time 

 of laying ; for as they do not make their nest at any fixed season, so 

 neither is their moulting regular, from which arises the great variety 

 in their appearance. From all this it follows that the crossbill has 

 much the same varieties of colour as the linnet ; and that it is only the 

 red garb, which they wear for a year, which so distinguishes them 

 from other birds. It is curious that the young ones, which are bred 

 in aviaries in Thuringia iu great numbers, never acquire in confine- 

 ment the red colour, but in the second year either remain grey, or im- 

 mediately receive the greenish yellow colour of the males who have 

 twice moulted. 



Habitat. — In a wild state, the crossbill inhabits Europe, Northern 

 Asia and America. It frequents fir and pine woods but only when 

 there is abundance of the cones. In confinement it must have a bell- 

 shaped wire cage, of the form and size adapted for a canary. It may 

 also be allowed to run about, if a pine branch be provided on which 

 it may perch and roost. It cannot, however, be kept in a wooden 

 cage, as it destroy the woodworks with its bill. 



Food. — Its food, when wild, chiefly consists of fir seeds, which it 

 partly extracts from the scales of the cones with its bill, and partly 

 from the ground. It also eats the seeds of the pine and alder, and the 

 buds and flowers of the sumach. If kept in a cage, it may be fed on 

 hemp, rape, and fir seeds, or juniper berries. If allowed to run about, 

 it is content with the second uuiversal paste. 



Breeding. — Its time of incubation is the most remarkable of its pecu- 

 liarities, for it breeds between December and April. It builds its 

 nest in the upper branches of coniferous trees of thin pine or fir twigs, 

 on which is placed a thick layer of earth moss, lined within with the 

 finest coral moss. It is not pitched inside and out with resin, as some 

 have reported. Thefemale lays three to five greyish white eggs,hav- 

 iug at the thick end a circle of reddish brown stripes and spots. The 

 heating nature of their food preserves both old and young from the ef- 

 fects of the winter's cold. Like all grosbeaks, they feed their young 

 with food disgorged from their own crops. They may be reared on 

 bread soaked in milk, and mixed with poppy seed. 



Diseases. — The exhalations of a room have a bad effect on these 

 birds, so that they are subject, when in confinement, to sore eyes, and 

 swollen or ulcerated feet. The country folk of the mountains are sim- 

 ple enough to believe that these birds have the power of attracting 

 their diseases to themselves, and are therefore glacl to keep them. A 

 grosser superstition adds to this, that the bird, whose upper mandible 

 crosses on the right of the lower, or, as they call it, a right crossbill at- 

 tracts to itself the diseases of men ; and that a left crossbill, or one 

 whose upper mandible crosses on the other side, takes away the dis- 

 eases of women. In some districts, the latter birds are preferred, as 

 having most healing efficacy. Simple people daily drink the wate^ 

 left by these birds in their troughs, as a specific against epilepsy, to 

 which, as well as apoplexy, the crossbills are subject. 



Mode of Taking- — In either autumn or spring, they are easy to catch 

 by means of a decoy. A stake, to which strong limed twigs have 

 been attached, is fixed, with the decoy bird at its side, in some forest 

 glade to which the birds are observed to resort. They will certainly 

 be lured to the twigs by the " gip, gip, gip," of the decoy. In some 

 parts of Thuringia, the country people place spring traps in the tops 

 of the pines, a favourite haunt of the bird, and hang a good decoy in a 

 cage on the highest branches. As soon as one bird perches, the others 

 follow ; and as many are often caught as there are traps, if the sticks 

 on which the birds are to perch are alone allowed to project. 



Attractive Qualities — The crossbill is rather a silly bird in a cage, 

 and uses its bill and feet for the purposes of locomotion, like the par- 

 rot. If in health, it swings its body up and down like a siskin, and 

 utters its harsh and unmelodious song. The males, however, are not 

 all alike in this respect, for the amateur prefers those which often ut- 

 ter the ringing note like " Reitz." or "Kreitz," called the crossbill's 

 crow. It becomes so tame, that it may be carried in the open air on 

 the finger, and accustomed to fly in and out of the house. 



Naturalist's Calendar, for November and Dec mbar, Toroato 5 

 1853. By William Couper. 



The Great White Owl, (Strix JYyctea,) November 4th. — This bird in 

 habits the northern parts of America, Asia, and Europe. Its body is 

 whitish, with lunated fuscous spots. In the Lapland Alps it is quite 

 white, and hardly distinguishable from the snow. Mr. Bullock {Lin- 

 nean Tra7isactions, Vol. XI, Pari I,) thinks it breeds in Shetland. It 

 arrives on the peninsula opposite Toronto early in November, where 

 (if not disturbed) it remains neaily three months. Some of them 

 measure five feet in expanse of wing. Its food consists chiefly of 

 musk rat, mice, and other small quadrupeds : it also chases the 

 leathered tribe by day. 



Dragon-flies, last seen, November 5th. 



The Carab Agonum Cupripenne, taken on the banks of the river Don, 

 November 15th. From the above locality, and on the same day, I 

 took 8 species of Carabida. They were found in the drift-wood 

 washed on the banks by the river, and under stones and logs. 



On the 1st December, I took from a decayed stump of a beech tree 

 two large beetles of the Elater family, {Alaus Ocillatus.) No trace of 

 the larvae could be discovered. The two taken are males, and from 

 the position in which they were found in the timber, I am satisfied 

 they were hybernating. As soon as they received the warmth from 

 my hand, a general movement of their limbs took place ; in turning 

 one of them on its back, it possessed the usual power of springing. 

 Mr. T. W. Harris, of Massachusetts, in his treatise on Insects injurious 



