NOTES AND QUE HIES. 429 



open spaces prevented ray detecting even what colour they were, much less 

 what species they belonged to, although the thought crossed my mind, Can 

 they be Crossbills, and are the notes I am listening to the same as Long- 

 fellow calls " Songs, like legends, strange to hear " ? I, however, was not 

 long in doubt, for one of the birds descended from the tree in pursuit of a 

 fallen cone, and there on the white sandy soil, only a few paces from me, 

 was a beautiful specimen of the bird, in the orange-red plumage, with 

 " marks of blood and holy rood," as the translated legend informs us. I was 

 much interested in the occurrence, and in almost breathless silence watched 

 it tear the cone to pieces — in a very parrot-like fashion — with its beak, 

 holding the cone in position with one of its feet. I think I have read 

 somewhere that the beak of this bird has been considered a deformity of 

 nature, but the ease and dexterity with which the instrument was used on 

 this occasion proved, I thought, its adaptability as a " means to an end." 

 I watched the bird closely until it flew away to its companions in the 

 branches above, and then I went and picked up the small coue upon which 

 it had been working so intently, and found that the scale-like processes of 

 the cone had merely been torn asunder (not severed from the central " core," 

 as a Squirrel does its work), so that the immature seeds could be extracted 

 by the scissors-like beak. I saw a number of male cones scattered beneath 

 the trees similarly treated, but I am not at all prepared to state that Cross- 

 bills were the cause of their mutilation, for, strange to say, although I daily 

 visited the spot both before and after the occurrence, I only once heard the 

 birds, and did not see them again. I think I have heard that the species 

 has been detected nesting in this particular neighbourhood, and although 

 perhaps my present observation proves nothing either for or against that 

 fact, yet it is interesting to know that a species we usually connect with 

 more northern localities should occur so far south in the middle of summer ; 

 and yet it seems to me its occurrence here at such a time is not frequent, 

 or else some of our ornithological peers (many no doubt visiting this well- 

 known locality every season) would not have been silent on the point, and 

 left it to my poor pen to describe. Of course it goes without saying that 

 the majority of the cones were in a very unripe state, and consequently 

 with seeds quite undeveloped, and perhaps that was partly the cause why 

 the birds stayed so short a period in one particular spot. While wandering 

 about in the woods one thing was very apparent, viz. the comparative abun- 

 dance of the House Sparrow and the scarcity of the Squirrel (for one naturally 

 expects to find this little rodent amongst its much-loved fir trees, especially 

 as it is so common only a few miles away) ; but this seeming anomaly may 

 be met in the fact of so many houses having sprung up in unlooked-for 

 situations amongst the trees. As we are well aware, the bird delights in 

 the proximity of human habitations, whilst the quadruped shuns them ; or 

 it may be that the scarcity of the latter is partly attributable to the 



