92 BRITISH BIRDS’ EGGS. 
COMMON CROSSBILL. 
Loxra curvirostra, Linn. 
Pl. XIV., fig. 16. 
Geogr. distr.—Entirve Palearctic region; an irregular visitor to 
Great Britain, but resident in some parts of Scotland. 
Food.—Insects, seeds, berries, and fruits. 
Nest.—Formed of long, broad grass or bents and plant-stalks, and 
coarse moss, felted together with wool or fine moss and lichens, and 
lined with wool or horse-hair; the outside is supported upon a 
platform of twigs of larch-fir. 
Position of nest.—In forks and branches of Scotch fir, occasionally 
not more than five feet from the ground, but usually at a considerable 
elevation. 
Number of eggs.—2-3. 
Time of nidvfication.—II-V ; March. 
This species is believed to have bred in Devon, Somerset, 
Hampshire, Surrey, Sussex, Kent, Herts, Gloucestershire, 
Hissex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Bedford, Leicester, Cumberland, 
Yorkshire, and Northumberland ; it has also bred in various 
counties of Scotfand and Ireland. 
“The attention of a passenger,” says Newton, “is mostly 
drawn to the presence of a flock of Crossbills in one or 
other of two ways. He may notice the ground strewn with 
the fragments of enucleated cones, or—and this possibly 
the more often—he may hear a strange call-note, which 
has been syllabled jip, jip, jip, frequently repeated, and, on 
looking up, will find that it proceeds from birds that are 
ever and anon flying out from the branches of a tree, 
generally a conifer, and resettling upon it. Then he can 
stop to watch their actions carefully, for these birds are 
almost invariably tame, and admit of a very close approach, 
so much so, indeed, that instances are not uncommon in 
which they have been ensnared by a running noose affixed 
to the end of a long pole or fishing-rod and passed over 
their head, or, touched with a limed twig, adroitly applied 
by the same means, fall helpless victims to the ground.” 
—(Hist. Brit. Birds, 4th ed., vol. 11, p. 195.) 
Seebohm says that the female sits very close, and is fed 
on the nest by the male, and that the nest ‘‘is formed on 
the same model as that of the Bullfinch, an outside nest of 
sticks and an inside nest of soft materials, the latter 
rising somewhat higher than the former.” 
