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young bird in confinement for six months, which was caught at the lime-kilns outside Copenhagen 

 early in October 1845; in August 1846 one was caught close to Copenhagen; and on the 29th 

 December, 1849, a fine old male was caught in a garden at Elsinore, and was presented to the 

 Copenhagen Museum by Mr. Steenberg. According to Mr. Cordeaux (Ibis, 1875, p. 183) it is 

 a rather rare visitant to Heligoland, where it usually appears, like the common Crossbill, in 

 August with stormy weather from the west or north-west. From the end of August to the 20th 

 of September, in 1868, it was uncommonly numerous, sometimes twenty or thirty together, the 

 weather being fine, the wind easterly and north-easterly. 



In the autumn of 1829, when so large a number visited various parts of Central Europe, it 

 being then especially numerous in Silesia and Thuringia, it appears also to have visited Antwerp ; 

 it has been recorded on several occasions from different parts of Belgium, and was seen there 

 in flocks in September 1842 and November and December 1845. According to Baron De Selys 

 Longchamps an old male was shot at Longchamps-sur-Geer in 1827, and two females in 

 November 1845. In February 1846 it was seen near Utrecht, in Holland; and westward it 

 has been recorded from the vicinity of Caen, in Normandy, where, according to Messrs. Degland 

 and Gerbe, an adult male was obtained. It does not range so far south as the common 

 Crossbill ; but, according to Meisner and Schinz, there is or was a Swiss specimen in the Bern 

 Museum ; and it has been recorded from Tyrol and the Bergamasco, but is stated to be very 

 rare in the upper portions of Venetia and Lombardy, and does not appear to have been observed 

 in Greece. It is, however, recorded from Southern Germany ; and Dr. A. Fritsch says (J. f. O. 

 1871, p. 310) that it has appeared on several occasions in North-western Bohemia. In 1841 

 several were caught near Eger, and in March 1845 several at Grasslitz. Palliardi received some 

 alive from Wildstein in the latter year. According to Mr. E. F. von Homeyer (J. f. O. 1872, 

 p. 308) it was very numerous on the frontier mountains between Saxony and Bohemia, in the 

 winter of 1845-46 ; and Von Pelzeln says that there are three specimens in the Vienna Museum 

 which are said to have been obtained in Austria. It has also been observed in Hungary. I 

 may here refer to a somewhat curious account of a species of Crossbill, probably not the present 

 species, but Loxia curvirostra, given by an Arabic author, Cazvini, in the early part of the 13th 

 century. In describing the wonders of Great Bulgaria on the Danube, he says : — " There is in the 

 country of the Bulgares a bird which is found nowhere else. The upper part of its beak, which 

 is very long, turns to the right for six months in the year, and to the left the other six months ; 

 but when it eats, the two mandibles are applied evenly to one another. It is said that it has a 

 calculus in its bladder which is useful in medicine, and that if it drops its egg on the ice or snow 

 it melts it as if it were fire." I am indebted to Mr. H. H. Howorth, of Manchester, for this 

 interesting, though somewhat peculiar, natural-history extract, he having noticed it whilst pursuing 

 his ethnological studies. 



However, to return to the range of the present species. I find it recorded from Northern 

 Asia; but it does not straggle very far south. Von Middendorff found it very numerous on the 

 Jenesei up to above 63° N. lat. ; and late in October he observed it in Mantchuria, on the southern 

 slope of the boundary mountains, and obtained a young bird at Udskoj-Ostrog in June. Von 

 Schrenck obtained one north of the Nikolaieffsk post on the 15th (27th) February ; and Dr. G. 



