340 FEMALE WHITE-WINGED CROSSBILL. 
is common on the borders of Lake Ontario, and descends in 
autumn and winter into Canada and the northern and middle 
States. Its migrations, however, are very irregular. During 
four years it had escaped my careful researches, and now, 
while writing (in the first week of November 1827), they are 
so abundant, that I am able to shoot every day great numbers 
out of flocks that are continually alighting in a copse of Jersey 
scrub-pine (Pinus imops) even opposite my window. It is 
proper to mention, that owing perhaps to the inclemency of 
the season, which has so far been distinguished by rains, early 
frost, and violent gales of wind, there have been extraordinary 
flights of winter birds. Many flocks of the purple finch are 
seen in all directions. The American siskin (fringilla pinus, 
Wils.), of which I never saw a living specimen before, covers 
all the neighbouring pines and its favourite thistles with its 
innumerable hosts. The snow-bunting (Zmberiza nivalis) has 
also made its appearance in New Jersey, though in small 
parties, after an absence of several years.” 
The white-winged crossbills generally go to Hudson’s Bay 
on their return from the south, and breed there, none remain- 
ing during summer, even in the most northern parts of the 
United States, where they are more properly transient irre- 
cular visitors than even winter residents. ‘They are seldom 
observed elsewhere than in pine-swamps and forests, feeding 
almost exclusively on the seeds of these trees, together with a 
few berries. All the specimens I obtained had their crops filled 
to excess entirely with the small seeds of Pinus tnops. They 
kept in flocks of from twenty to fifty, when alarmed suddenly 
taking wing all at once, and after a little manceuvring in the 
air, generally alighting again nearly on the same pines whence 
they had set out, or adorning the naked branches of some dis- 
tant, high, and insulated tree. In the countries where they 
pass the summer, they build their nest on the limb of a pine, 
* This is the case also with the common crossbills and European 
siskin, and has hardly yet met with any reasonable solution. See notes 
to these birds.—Ep. 

