On the Change of Plumage in the Common Crossbill. 191 



feathers of apparently a bird of tlie same species, interlaced 

 with the walling of the nest. In fact, the crossbill is no tender 

 bird, and the nest is built of the strongest and coarsest mate- 

 rials, to defy the inclement weather which prevails at the 

 season in which this strange bird has chosen for nidification. 

 It is strange that Nilsson, the great Swedish authority, when 

 speaking of the breeding habits of the crossbill, should say 

 that they breed at all seasons from December to July, and 

 that the winter nest is domed, the summer nest open. 

 This may seem all very natural, but it is not correct. I 

 never saw a domed nest out of the many scores I have taken, 

 although I often wondered that they should not build a domed 

 nest like the wren and the magpie ; for often when the month 

 of March has been more than usually cold and snowy, have I 

 found the young ones lying dead in the nest half-filled with 

 snow. The breeding season depends in a certain degree upon 

 the weather, but they never go to nest later than early in 

 March, and by the end of April we shoot strong flyers in our 

 forests. I have taken the nest as early as the end of February, 

 and I never took one with fresh eggs after the very beginning 

 of April. They certainly do not breed twice in the year, at 

 least not in the same district ; for about May they begin to 

 flock and leave the forest in which they breed, and during the 

 summer we rarely see them. The parrot crossbill goes to 

 nest usually a fortnight later than the common bird. The 

 nest and eggs of both are much alike, thickly and clumsily 

 built of sticks and moss, that of the parrot crossbill being the 

 largest, and the eggs thicker, and in general more highly 

 coloured. The nest and eo-o-s of the crossbill much resemble 

 those of the greenfinch, but larger. Neither species breed in 

 the deep forest, and seldom in a fir. On stony rises, where the 

 small pines stand wide apart, is the place to look for the nest 

 of the crossbill, at least in Sweden. It is a very easy nest to 

 find, for ea-rly in the morning the old male sits on a fir top in 

 the vicinity of the nest, and cheers his sitting mate with a 

 loud and by no means unmelodious song. The nest is always 

 placed close into the stem of the tree, and never high from 

 the ground. The full number of eggs is three ; I have seen 

 four, but very rarely. 



But to return to the plumage. 



Unfortunately, I have not Yarrell at hand. Wood, how- 

 ever, in his Illustrated Natural History, by Eoutledge, which, 

 without being a scientific work, is a very pleasing and useful 

 guide to the naturalist, gives some extracts from YarrelPs 

 British Birds, in which both the orange and red plumage is 

 well described. " But," as he says, " a red bird is now before 

 me that had completed his moult before the first autumn." 



