188 On the Change of Plumage in the Common Crossbill. 



scarlet pileus, with a separable cuticle, and white equal free 

 gills. As the name implies, it is a very dangerous fungus. 



7. Mitrula paludosa, Fr. One of our most beautiful fungi, 

 always occurring in very moist places, and generally on 

 decaying leaves. Though clavate, it is totally different in 

 structure from the true Clavarice. 



ON THE CHANGE OP PLUMAGE IN THE COMMON 

 CROSSBILL (Loxia Curvirostra), WITH A PEW 

 REMARKS ON THEIR BREEDING AND OTHER 

 HABITS. 



BY "AN OLD BUSHMAN." 



The subject of the change of plumage in birds, whether by a 

 regular or a partial moult, is one of the greatest interest to the 

 naturalist, and in the class of birds of which we are now 

 treating, and which undergo so marked a change, from the 

 dull green nest plumage to the bright scarlet livery of the 

 adult male, there has always existed a doubt in the minds of 

 naturalists as to the age of the bird in which this bright red 

 plumage is obtained. Most naturalists, I believe, leant to the 

 opinion that this dress was assumed in both the crossbills and 

 the pine grosbeak on the first moult. I always had my doubts 

 as to this, and an attentive study of both birds in a state of 

 nature, and a careful examination of some hundred specimens 

 of each, in every intermediate stage of plumage between the 

 nest dress and the old bright yellow green of the very old bird, 

 has proved satisfactorily to me that the bright crimson dress 

 in neither is assumed at the first autumnal moult, and probably 

 not till the third, and that in the crossbills especially the male 

 bird undergoes several changes before this red livery is 

 complete. 



No one has perhaps had better opportunities of studying 

 the habits of the crossbills than myself. I have now resided 

 for many years in the forests of Sweden — the hot-bed of these 

 birds — and I have paid much attention to the study. I have 

 found it, however, extremely difficult to obtain certain proofs 

 of what I state below, although my conclusions arc drawn from 

 actual observation of hundreds of specimens, in every stage of 

 plumage — many of them shot from the nest (the most valuable 

 of all to a naturalist who is wishing to solve a difficult problem 

 like the present). 



It is only at certain intervals of perhaps two or three years 

 that we have the crossbills breeding in our forests. It is only 



