142 The American Naturalist. [February, 
noted six near Muncie, Indiana, April 16, 1892, and another 
April 24. Messrs. Charles D. and Lewis A. Test have kindly 
sent me the following interesting notes from the observations 
_of the spring of 1892. The notes were taken near Lafayette, 
Indiana, March 8, 1892, they saw the first American Crossbill. 
They were seen on the following succeeding dates: March J; 
April 15, 19, 23 and 30; May 1, 3, 6, 8, 18, 20,21, 27 and 30; 
June 2, 6, 22, 23,27 and 30. The birds were seen in pine 
trees and also in yards and along the road. Search was made 
for nests but none were found. I am indebted to Mr. Otto 
Widmann for some valuable notes relating to the American 
Crossbill in Missouri last winter and spring and summer (1891 
-2). He says :—“ I never suspected these cone-loving nomads 
to descend into a country so flat and uninteresting as St. Louis 
. County, Mo., where Nature never rears a cone without the help 
ofthe gardener. Thousands of young evergreens, especially 
Norway Spruces, have been planted during the past decade, 
but old cone-bearing conifers are few and far between. There 
are on my place, besides a few Norway Spruces, 18 pine trees 
about 30 yearsold. Half of them are Austrian Pines, the toe 
White and Scotch Pines. : 
Coniferous trees do not bear fruit every year, but last win- 
ter the Austrian pines were full of cones, getting ready to drop 
the seeds in early spring. Besides the maturing pine seeds, 
our section had another attraction for erratic fruit-eaters 12 
the orchards. The apple trees had yielded an enormous CoP 
and the demand not being sufficiently great to gather them 10 
time, thousands of apples were still hanging in the trees when 
the Crossbills appeared on the scene. It was in the orchard 
that they made their appearance on Nov. 13, the day after tho 
first “ blizzard ” had visited the upper Missouri Valley. F ae? 
this day on, the Crossbills remained in the neigborhood unti 
the end of the month, but none were here in December e 
January, at least I did not notice any until they began to " 
my pine trees in February. They were daily visitors 
through March and until the 17th of April. From that day 
until May 8th none were seen, but from the 8th to the 14 
they were again. daily callers. After this date they wer? 
