1895
Sept. 10
(no 5)
  During the day we were rarely out of sight or sound of
Crossbills. Both species appear to be equally common. While
I was watching the Ducks at Bottle Brook Pond a
Red Crossbill sang for nearly an hour in once place repeating
its song at short regular intervals. There was little or no
wind at the time and although the bird was perched 
on a spruce on the opposite side of the pond fully 200 yds
from me its song filled my ears. It was fully as
loud as the song of a Purple Finch. I heard it to
much better advantage here than in the case of the birds
singing at Upton on August 29th for the singing there
was more or less medley singing by several birds at once
& moreover there were other voices [delete]besides[/delete] such as the voices of men
& cattle whereas here my songster had the whole
sleeping forest to himself. His song did not vary in
the least with the different repetitions but was invariably
of eight notes or perhaps I should rather say four
notes repeated twice without any appreciable pause between the
two phrases. The opening two notes in each phrase were sweet 
& full & resembled those of Spinus tristis, the two closing
notes were exceedingly like one of those in the song of
Melospiza fasciata. These latter are the ones that I 
compared (Aug 29.) to those of the Seaside Finch but
they are much more musical & more like the voice
of the Song Sparrow. The effect of the whole song is
highly pleasing & the bird deserves fairly high rank
as a songster among Fringillidae. I should think
that if it were heard too often, however, the song might become
possibly a little tiresome. The notes are given with
a curious distinctness & deliberation as if the bird
were keeping its voice within rigid constraint.
[margin]Loxia
minor et
leucoptera[/margin]
[margin]Song of
L. minor[/margin]