WHITE-IVINGED CROSSBILL. 43 



NAMES: American Crossbill, Red Crossbill, Common Crossbill. 



SCIENTIFIC NAMES: Crucivostra minor Brehm (1853). LOXIA CURVIROSTRA MINOR Ridgw. (1885). 



DESCRIPTION : Adult mah^ dull red, brightest on the rump, wings and tail uniformly dusky. Adult female, 

 plain olive, tinged with grayish or yellowish. 



Length, 5.50 to 6.25 inches; wing, 3.20 to 3.60; tail, 1.85 to 2.40 inches. 



The variety Loxia carvirostra stricklkndi Ridgw. (Mexican Crossbill), is a little 

 larger and the colors are brighter. 



WHITE-WINGED CROSSBILL. 



Loxia leucoptera Gmelin. 



Plate XXI. Fia. 4. 



^HIS handsome bird is as erratic in its movements as the common Crossbill. 

 Occurring during one winter in large flocks and in company with the common 

 Crossbills, Pine Grosbeaks, Red-polls, Evening Grosbeaks, and Waxwings,it may, perhaps, 

 not be found again in the same locality for the next five or ten successive winters. Like . 

 its ally it is a very gregarious bird, being never seen alone, but always in flocks. In 

 the breeding season these flocks separate and each pair is following its own w^ay. In 

 the days of my youth I have sometimes seen flocks of from twenty to hundred in the 

 dense and beautiful woods of white-pines in Sheboygan County, Wis. In the winter of 

 1875 and 1876 I observed them in great numbers in Oak Park, 111. 



"The Crossbills of both species," says Mr. Winfred A. Steams, "are birds of the 

 most strongly marked originality of character, and it is never safe to predict w^hat they 

 may and may not be found about. Their most remarkable habit is that of breeding in 

 winter, or very early in the spring, when one w^ould think it impossible that the callow 

 young could endure the rigors of the season. They are most devoted parents, seeming 

 entirely insensible of danger in the defence of their homes ; and at all times, indeed, 

 betray a confidence in man that is too often misplaced, and that seems the height of 

 folly to one who know^s as much of human nature as most people find out, sooner or 

 later, to their cost. The birds are much attached to pine woods, the seeds of the coni- 

 fers furnishing them abundant food, of a kind that their curiously shaped bills enable 

 them to secure with great ease and address. From their summer resorts in the depth 

 of the evergreen woods the Crossbills come flocking in the fall to all other parts of 

 New England and beyond, generally associated with the other species, or. with Pine 

 Grosbeaks and Red-polls, always gentle, unsuspicious, and apparently quite at their 

 ease. They are not so common, however, as the Red Crossbills are, and both species 

 take such freal^s in deciding thejr course of action that their appearance can never be 

 relied upon. It need surprise no one to come upon a pair of Crossbills breeding any- 

 where in New England; though the general tenor of the Crossbill's way is as above 



