AMERICAN CROSSBILL. 



39 



are obliged to confess, on this, as on many other occasions, 

 where we have judged too hastily of the operations of Nature, 

 that no other conformation could have been so excellently 

 adapted to the purpose ; and that its deviation from the 

 common form, instead of being a defect or monstrosity, as 

 the celebrated French naturalist insinuates, is a striking proof of 

 the wisdom and kind superintending care of the great Creator. 



small flocks, at uncertain intervals. This is the case with those which 

 visit Britain. They must hatch very early, arriving in this country by 

 the middle of June ; the females at that time bear all the marks of in- 

 cubation, but have never yet been authentically proved to breed in this 

 country, as supposed by Mr Knap, from the bareness of the breast. They 

 descend, at the same season, to the orchards, where they do considerable 

 damage, by splitting the apples for the pips, thus leaving the fruit use- 

 less, and incapable of farther growth ; and, at the same time, giving us 

 a good instance of the power of their bills. Some old writers accuse 

 them of visiting Worcester and Herefordshire, " in great flocks, for the 

 sake of the seeds of the apple. Eepeated persecution on this account 

 perhaps lessened their numbers, and their depredations at the present 

 day are unnoticed or unknown : " their visitations, at least, are less 

 frequent ; for a later writer in Loudon's Magazine observes, that, in 

 1821, and the commencement of 1822 (the same season of their great 

 appearance mentioned by Mr Selby), a large flock of crossbills frequented 

 some fir groves at Cothoridge, near Worcester, where they used to visit 

 the same spot pretty regularly twice a-day, delighting chiefly on the 

 Weymouth pines. When feeding, they seem in this country, as well as 

 with our author, to be remarkably tame, or so much engrossed with their 

 food, as to be unmindful of danger. Montague relates, that a birdcatcher 

 at Bath had taken a hundred pairs in the month of June and July, 

 1791 ; and so intent were these birds when picking out the seeds of a 

 cone, that they would suffer themselves to be caught with a hair noose 

 at the end of a long fishing-rod. In 1821, this country was visited with 

 large flocks ; they appeared in June, and gradually moved northward, 

 as they were observed by Mr Selby in September among the fir tracts 

 of Scotland, after they had disappeared to the southward of the river 

 Tweed. In 1828, a pretty large flock visited the vicinity of Ambleside, 

 Westmoreland. Their favourite haunt was a plantation of young larches, 

 where they might be seen disporting almost every day, particularly be- 

 tween the hours of eleven and one. 



I have quoted no synonyms which belong to our British species. The 

 American birds appear to me much smaller ; that is, to judge from our 

 author's plate, and the usually correct drawings of Mr Audubon. — Ed. 



