AMERICAN CROSSBILL. 293 
times are generally found to have the stomach filled with a soft, greasy 
kind of earth or clay. When kept in a cage, they have many of the 
habits of the Parrot; often climbing along the wires; and using their 
feet to grasp the cones in, while taking out the seeds. 
This same species is found in Nova Scotia, and as far north as 
Hudson’s Bay, arriving at Severn River about the latter end of May ; 
and, according to accounts, proceeding farther north to breed. It is 
added by Pennant, that “they return at the first setting in of frost.” 
Hitherto this bird has, as usual, been considered a mere variety of 
the European species; though differing from it in several respects, 
and being nearly one third less, and although the singular, conforma- 
tion of the bill of these birds, and their peculiarity of manners, ara 
strikingly different from those of the Grosbeaks, yet many, disregard- 
ing these plain and obvious discriminations, still continue.to consider 
them as belonging to the genus Loxia ; as if the particular structure 
of the bill should, in all cases but this, be the criterion by which to 
judge of a species; or perhaps, conceiving themselves the wiser of 
the two, they have thought proper to associate together what. Nature 
has, in the most pointed manner, placed apart. 
In separating these birds, therefore, from the Grosbeaks, and class- 
ing them as a family by themselves, substituting the specific for the 
generic appellation, I have only followed the steps and dictates of 
that great Original, whose arrangements ought never to be disre- 
garded by any who would faithfully copy her. : 
The Crossbills are subject to considerable changes of color; the 
young males of the present species being, during the first season, 
olive yellow, mixed with ash; then bright greenish yellow, intermixed 
‘with spots of dusky olive, all of which yellow plumage becomes, in 
the second year, of a light red, having the edges of the tail inclin- 
ing to yellow. When confined in a cage, they usually lose the red 
color at the first moulting, that tint changing to a brownish yellow, 
which remains permanent. The same circumstance happens to the 
Purple Finch and Pine Grosbeak, both of which, when in confinement, 
exchange their brilliant crimson for a motley garb of light brownish 
yellow; as I have had frequent opportunities of observing. 
The male of this species, when in perfect plumage, is five inches 
and three quarters long, and nine inches in extent; the bill is a 
brown horn color, sharp, and single-edged towards the extremity, 
where the mandibles cross each other; the general color of the plu- 
mage is ared-lead color, brightest on the rump, generally intermixed 
on the-other parts with touches of olive; wings and tail, brown black, 
the latter forked, and edged with yellow; legs and feet, brown; claws, 
large, much curved, and very sharp; vent, white, streaked with dark 
ash ; base of ‘the bill, covered with recumbent down, of a pale brown 
color; eye, hazel. 
The female is rather less than the male ; the bill of a paler horn color; 
rump, tail-coverts, and edges of the tail, golden yellow; wings and 
tail, dull brownish black ; the rest of the plumage, olive yellow mixed 
with ash; legs and feet, as in the male. The young males, during the 
first season, as is usual with most other birds, very much resemble the 
female. In moulting, the males exchange their red for brownish yel- 
low, which gradually brightens into red. Hence, at different seasons, 
they differ greatly in color.. ; 
25 * 
