298 



BIRDS. 



they appear to come in successiye * wares,' but the extension of 

 range is decidedly going on. 



At present we can epitomise its distributional area as follows : 

 — South of the Moray Firth the Crossbill is found all over Strath- 

 spey and down Speyside, as far up Badenoch as Kingussie, whilst 

 the tributary glens of Feshie, Dulnan, and the minor stream- 

 valleys of the wooded tracts, are full of them. They overflow into 

 the valley of the Findhom, down through Arddach and Dama- 

 way, Altyre, Brodie, Culmoney, and into the valley of the Xairn, 

 at Cawdor and Holm Rose, and so along to Forres and all through 

 the Laigh of Moray, and the woods which crest the Braes o* Moray 

 about the source of the river Lossie, stretching eastward across the 

 mouths of Spey, da Lochaber, into Deveron at Cullen, Rothiemay, 

 and the Bin woods aroimd Huntly. The overflow has also ex- 

 tended out of Moray into Dee by the Ythan ^ and Bogie valleys ; 

 and out of Moray, north of Inverness, into the West Ross area via 

 Loch ^laree. 



The whole history of the expansion of the Crossbill's breeding 

 area in Scotland, up to the present time, certainly appears to us to 

 teach a lesson ; and even since the above account was put down in 

 black and white, we continue to receive further rapid developments, 

 and records of still more remarkable occurrences. Of late years 

 only has the Crossbill inhabited West Ross as a part of its 

 breeding area. Only of late years has the Crossbill appeared on 

 migration upon our west coast, as for instance in Mull ; and we 

 have ventured to predict a rapid increase of range and breeding 

 quarters from the Ross-shire locality towards the south, after 

 the new migration route has become well known and more abun- 

 dantly used. As we write, further information reaches us: — 

 * Crossbills in Foula,' where * the islanders never saw these birds 

 before' (Frank Trail, in Annals Scottish Natural History, October 

 1894) ; and coincident with this record is another by the editors, 

 of ' Crossbills at Monach Island,* the westermost of the Outer 

 Hebrides, and also a flock again at an Inner Hebridean locality, 

 ^■iz., Skerr}"S'ore {loc. cit.). These occurrences were : — the former 

 on the 16th August and 3rd September, with winds north-west, 



i A neat with four eggs was taken by Mr. George Muirhead and Mr. A. H. 

 Evans in April 1893, of which two eggs are retained in the Museum which is being 

 formed at Haddo Hoose, and two are in the latter gentleman's collection. 



