292 AMERICAN CROSSBILL. 
the husks that enclose them, we are obliged to confess, on this, as on 
many other occasions, where we have judged too hastily of the opera- 
tions of Nature, that no other conformation could have been so excel- 
lently ajapted to the purpose ; and that its deviation from the common 
form, instead of being a defect or monstrosity, as the celebrated 
French naturalist insinuates, is a striking proof of the wisdom and 
kind, superintending care of the grat Creator. 
This species is a regular inhabitant of almost all our pine forests 
situated north of 40°, from the beginning of September to the middle 
of April. It is not improbable that some of them remain during sum- 
mer within the territory of the United States to breed. Their num- 
bers must, however, be comparatively few, as I have never yet met 
with any of them in summer; though lately I took a journey to the 
Great Pine Swamp beyond Pocano Mountain, in Northampton county, 
Pennsylvania, in the month of May, expressly for that purpose; and 
ransa¢ked, for six or seven days, the gloomy recesses of that exten- 
sive and desolate morass, without being able to discover a single 
Crossbill. In fall, however, as well as in winter and spring, this tract 
appears to be their favorite rendezvous; particularly about the head 
waters of the Lehigh, the banks of the Tobyhanna, Tunkhannock, and 
Bear Creek, where I have myself killed them at these seasons. They 
then appear in large flocks, feeding on the seeds of the hemlock and 
white pine, have a loud, sharp, and not unmusical note; chatter as 
they fly ; alight, during the prevalence of deep snows, before the door 
of the hunter, and around the house, picking off the clay with which 
the logs are plastered, and searching in corners where urine, or any 
substance of a saline quality, had been thrown. At such times they are 
so tame as only to settle on the roof of the cabin when disturbed, and 
a moment after descend to feed as before. They are then easily 
caught in traps ; and will frequently permit one to approach so near as 
to knock them down with a stick. Those killed and opened at such 
ae instance of the power of their bills. Some old writers accuse them of visiting 
orcester and Herefordshire, “in great flocks, for the sake of the seeds of the 
apple. Repeated persecution on this account perhaps lessened their numbers, and 
their depredations at the present day are unnoticed or unknown :” their visitations, 
at least, are less frequent; for a later writer in Loudon’s Magazine observes, that, 
in 1821, and the commencement of 1822, (the same season of their great appearance 
mentioned by Mr. Selby,) a large flock of Crossbills frequented some fir groves at 
Cothoridge, near Worcester, when they used to visit the same spot pretty regu- 
larly twice a day, delighting chiefly on the Weymouth pines. When feeding, they 
seem in this canny as well as with our author, to be remarkably tame, or so 
much engrossed with their food, as to be unmindful of danger. Montague relates, 
that a bird-catcher at Bath had taken a hundred pairs in the month of June and 
July, 1791; and so intent were these birds when picking out the seeds of a cone, 
that they would suffer themselves to be caught with a hair noose at the end of a 
long fishing-rod. In 1821, this country was visited with large flocks; they ri 
ared in June, and gradually moved northward, -as they were observed by Mr. 
elby in September among the fir tracts of Scotland, after they had disappeared to 
the southward of the River Twecd. In 1828. a pretty large flock visited the 
vicinity of Ambleside, Westmoreland. Their favorite haunt was a plantation of 
young arches, where they might be seen disporting almost every day, particularly 
etween the hours of eleven and one. 
I have quoted no synonymes which belong to our British species. The American 
birds appear to me much smaller; that is, to judge from our author's plate, and the 
usualy correct drawings of Mr. Audubon. — En. 
