54 THE RANGE OF THE CROSSBILLS. 
not bear fruit every year, but last winter the Austrian pines 
were full of cones, getting ready to drop the seeds in early 
spring. Besides the maturing pine seeds our section had 
another attraction for erratic fruit-eaters in the orchards. 
The apple trees had yielded an enormous crop and the de- 
mand not being sufficiently great to gather them in time, 
thousands of apples were still hanging on the trees when the 
Crossbills appeared on the scene. It was in the orchard that 
they made their début on Nov. 13, the day after the first 
blizzard had visited the upper Missouri valley. From this 
day on the Crossbills remained in the neighborhood until the 
end of the month, but none were here in December and Jan- 
uary—at least I did not notice any until they began to 
visit my pine trees in February. They were daily visitors all 
through March and until the 17th of April. From that day 
until May 8 none were seen, but from the 8th to the r4th 
they were again daily callers, After this date they were 
noticed twice, a party of six on June 5, and two birds, a 
male and a female, in one of my pines on July 21st. I 
looked for their nest in the tree, but unfortunately it was not 
there. I think now that I have met with the species on 
several occasion in former years, but did not know them. 
Frequenters of private gardens they were only seen when on 
wing or distant tree-top, and evaded identification, With us 
it is a shy and restless bird, easily alarmed, and flying a great 
distance. Before taking wing and while in the air they are 
quite noisy, with a note closely resembling the parent call of 
the Purple Martin (Progne subis), But when feeding ina 
pine tree the whole troop keeps perfectly silent and nothing 
is heard but the noise made by breaking the cone-scales, 
When present in May they were also feeding in elms.” 
While sitting on the porch of a farmhouse in Putman Co., 
Ind., on the morning of July 11, 1892, I saw a Red Cross- 
bill alight on the top of a fir-tree in the yard and begin 
searching the cones for seeds. I watched it for about ten 
minutes and then, that there might be no possibility of mis- 
