I 



OF JfORTHITMBEELAIfD AXD DUEHAM. 49 



I know of thi'ee instances of the Crossbill nesting in our dis- 

 trict. A nest with the yonng was found, at Hesleyside, on the 

 15th of July, 1838, Both the parent birds and the young were 

 shot on their leaying the nest : one of the latter is iu my posses- 

 sion, and has the bill, as is known to be the case with nestlings, 

 scarcely at all crossed. The second nest was taken in 1856, 

 near Crawcrook, Dirrham. Mr. Thomas Grundy, gamekeeper 

 and woodman at Bradley, found it, and informed me that it was 

 discovered on the 24th of February, before it was completely 

 built. On the 1st of March there were three eggs in it, which 

 had been incubated for some days. It was near the top of an old 

 spruce fir, resting upon a branch at a distance of about eighteen 

 inches from the bole. This specimen, with the eggs, forms part 

 of my series of this species. In 1869, the third nest was taken, 

 between Biding Mill and Slaley, ^Northumberland, as I am in- 

 formed by Mr. Isaac Clark : the young were hatched. 



The Crossbill builds anDually in the northern parts of Scot- 

 land. The late Mr. Charles St. John and I took the nest of it 

 on the 8th of May, 1850, in Dulsie "Woods, near the Tindhorn. 

 The young had flown, but we saw the parent birds close by, 

 feeding them. This nest was not more than five feet from the 

 ground, on a horizontal branch of a fine old spreading Scotch fir. 

 "We saw, at the same time, a second nest, and the remains of seve- 

 ral others. But it was not until 1854 that I obtained the nest 

 and eggs, when one was taken on the 10th of March, with four 

 eggs, in Balnagowan Woods, Eosshire, by McDonald, a faithful 

 and much respected servant of Mr. St. John's. I believe this to 

 be the first time the nest and full complement of eggs had been 

 procured in the British Islands. Since then, I have received 

 numerous nests and eggs from Eosshire. 



The number of eggs is usually four : in one instance I have 

 seen five. This species is a very early breeder, February, March, 

 and April being the usual time. The nest is generally placed 

 on a horizontal branch at various elevations, sometimes as high 

 as thirty or forty feet, not ujifrequently quite low, being only 

 five or ten feet from the ground. In close woods where the 

 lower branches have all fallen, the nests, from necessity, are 



