Mar. ,1919 BREEDING HABITS OF THE RED CROSSBILL 59 
of a mile, and in the heavy timber it was impossible to follow them with the 
eye on their return journey. The only methods that proved successful were to 
find a singing male and use the tree he perched in as a base, or else to walk 
slowly through the woods watching for birds carrying nesting material. 
Several good prospects were located by these methods, but they were in 
trees that were impossible to climb. An abortive attempt at nest building was 
observed on March 1. This was on the top of a ridge overlooking Okanagan 
Lake where there were a number of second growth firs in small groups. In 
this case, a red male was seen at the top of a thirty-foot heavily foliaged fir, 
and as I approached he gave the characteristic alarm note, but did not fly. 
After waiting in concealment for five minutes, a female was seen to fly out 
from a dense piece of foliage ten feet below the top and disappear in the timber 
on the hillside. In a few minutes she returned with some nesting material in 
her bill which she carried to the top of another tree and there dropped. She 
repeated this a second time and then both birds flew off and did not return 
during the hour that I remained on the watch. 
On March 19, while hunting on the same ridge, a nest in process of con- 
struction was found, about one hundred yards distant, and I concluded that its 
owners were the same pair as had been under observation some two weeks 
earlier. The nest was saddled on a thin branch near the top of a forty foot 
Douglas fir about fourteen inches from the trunk and was so well concealed 
as to be all but invisible from below. The female was under observation for 
half an hour, while she carried material to the nest, moulding the interior with 
her body after each trip, while her mate remained at the top of a nearby tree 
chirping excitedly. 
Absence from the district prevented my return to the nest until April 9 
and it then contained a newly hatched chick, and two eggs on the point of 
hatching. The ground color of the eggs was pale bluish green lightly flecked 
with lavender and with a wreath of lavender and ruddy-brown spots around 
the larger end. No measurements of the eggs were taken and unfortunately I 
was not successful in preparing them. The nest which is a very handsome one 
was presented to the Provincial Museum at Victoria. The body of the nest is 
composed of black tree moss (Alectoria jubata), dry grass and weed stalks; 
the outside, of fine fir twigs, those selected for the rim being decorated with 
little tufts of vivid green lichen (Evernia vulpina). The inside is well felted 
with black tree moss and contains a few pieces of fine grass and one breast 
feather of a Red-tailed Hawk. It is 110 mm. in diameter with an outside depth 
of 60 mm. and an inside depth of 30 mm. 
On March 18, a red male was heard singing from the top of a second 
growth fir thirty feet high, one of a group on a steep hillside overlooking Oka- 
nagan Lake. At my approach he ealled excitedly until I reached the tree, 
when he flew some distance away. The nest was in the tree on which the male 
had been singing and was found without difficulty. It was on a lower branch 
ten feet above the ground and ten feet out from the trunk, in plain view from 
the ground. The female was sitting on one egg and did not leave the nest until 
the limb was shaken as I ascended the tree. 
Two more eggs were laid by March 20, and, rather than risk having them 
destroyed by a squirrel or a Magpie, I collected the nest and the female. On 
dissecting the bird a fourth egg, too much crushed to preserve, was found in 
the oviduct. The eggs measure, in millimeters, 15x20, 15x20, 14x19, and are 
