192 On the Change of Plumage in the Common Crossbill. 



We may infer that, like the rest, Tarrell considered the red to 

 be the plumage assumed on the first year after leaving the 

 nest. Wood's description of the nesting is correct ; but in a 

 similar work by Cassell, we find the following strange account : 

 " Makes its nest of moss and lichen, and fastens it to the 

 branches with the resin of the pine, and covers it with this 

 matter." This I never saw. 



Morris gives a good general description, and notices that 

 the young males after the first moult " are variously dull red, 

 reddish, yellowish red, greenish yellow, or dull yellow, shaded 

 with red." Save that I have never yet been able to identify 

 a dull red male just after the first moult, I like this description 

 as well as any. He figures a red male (far too dull, however) ; 

 but he does not tell us when it is supposed that this red dress 

 is assumed, or how long it lasts. 



Although living in the land of crossbills, Nilsson does not 

 help us much. He describes the young bird just after leaving 

 the nest, and also during moults. He says that both sexes are 

 alike at this period, and probably they are ; but this matters 

 little, as until they have completed the first moult, the colour 

 of the plumage goes for nothing. Young male after moulting 

 (of course he means after the first moult in the autumn, after 

 they have left the nest), " E-ed on the head, throat, and whole 

 body, darker on the back and shoulders ; old male, green or 

 yellow on all parts where the foregoing are red/-' 



Thus it will be seen that he never mentions the orange-red 

 dress at all. He leads us to suppose that the rod plumage is 

 assumed on the first autumnal moult after the bird has left 

 the nest ; and that the standard adult plumage is, as he de- 

 scribes it, " green or yellow on all parts where the younger 

 bird was red." He does not state here positively how long 

 the red dress is worn, and from this description we should 

 naturally 'conclude that the green-yellow dress of extreme age 

 (and the reader must not confound this with the orange-red 

 and yellow plumage of what I consider the ^young birds after 

 their first autumnal moult) is assumed at the end of the second 

 year. 



In a note he adds, " The males can breed before they have 

 attained their standard dress. We therefore find red as well 

 as yelloAV males breeding." That we certainly do ; but these 

 yellow males to which he alludes I can prove satisfactorily to 

 be young birds of the second year, and before they have ob- 

 tained their red dress, and not, as he would imply, males that 

 have changed from red to yellow. I certainly once, and only 

 once, did shoot a very old yellow-green paiTot crossbill from 

 the nest, and I fancy this was a bird many years old. 



He says that, besides the great change Avhich the males 



