50 A CATALOGUE OF THE BIRDS 



placed high up; but when the trees have plenty of room, and 

 consequently retain the lower branches, the birds not unfre- 

 quently prefer them for their nesting places. 



On the first moult both sexes attain their adult plumage, which 

 in the male is red, in the female green. The male afterwards 

 gradually becomes green like the female, but somewhat brighter, 

 and in parts inclined to a golden hue, particularly on the rump. 

 This is easily proved in cage birds. I requested my collector to 

 note the colour of the parent birds of each nest, and it appears 

 that in the greater number of cases one of them was green, and 

 the other red ; but it frequently happened that both parents 

 were green. In thirteen cases nine were red and green respect- 

 ively, in four both male and female were green. It was to be 

 expected that red males would predominate, as this is the livery 

 of the younger breeding birds. This fact of the change of plum- 

 age I had determined, years before, by noticing what took place 

 in cage birds. 



Some of the Scotch-bred specimens are quite as large as the 

 so-called Parrot Crossbill from Sweden and IsTorway ; and in size 

 the two forms imperceptibly graduate into each other : the same 

 is the case with their eggs. Indeed I can find no character, 

 either in the bird, nest, or egg, to distinguish the one from the 

 other. 



32. White-winged Crossbill. L. bipasciata, {Brehm.) 

 Loxia leucoptera, Yarrell, Hist. Brit. Birds, Ed. 2, II., 28. 

 ,, hifasciata, Gould, Birds of Great Britain, Part V. 



A female of this casual visitant was shot out of a flock of about 

 fifteen, near Brampton, Cumberland, IS'ovember, 1845 : this spe- 

 cimen is in my possession. Two or three others were killed at 

 the same time and place. This species ought not in strictness to 

 be included in our list ; but its place of capture is so close to the 

 borders of Northumberland, that it would scarcely be right to 

 exclude all notice of it. The flock, in all probability, may have 

 just passed out of the county, and in a few minutes afterwards 

 might have returned to it again. 



