Moffat. — The Crossbill a7id its Diet. 
3 
perfectly well able to extract, as the state of the cones 
dropped by them amply testified ; but their preference 
for the Larch was so pronounced that they used to quit 
this neighbourhood altogether when the Larches failed to 
bear a satisfactory crop, though there never was any scarcity 
of cones of that much more regular bearer, the Scotch Fir. 
The summer of 19 15 was not distinguished by any shortage 
of larch-cones, but the Crossbills, instead of duly apprecia- 
ting the abundance of their favourite fare, went with 
unwonted zeal at the pine-cones, and gave the Larch only 
second place in every grove in which I found traces of 
their feeding. 
I cannot help thinking that this change may indicate 
that the Crossbills came to us in 1909 from a somewhat 
different part of Europe from that which sent out the 
migration of 1888, and that in their original surroundings 
they were best accustomed to feeding in woods of Pine, 
as the earlier birds evidently were to taking their meals 
in Larch -trees. It would help much towards clearing up 
this question if naturalists resident in other parts of Ireland 
where Crossbills have been observed within the past few 
seasons would communicate notes stating whether the 
birds have in their neighbourhood fed more largely on the 
Pine (Scotch Fir) or on the Larch. 
I have not yet mentioned the Spruce Fir, as to which, 
however, I think that something ought now to be said. 
It will be remembered that Mr. Seebohm — and other 
writers following him — have laid it down that the practice 
of feeding on cones of Scotch Fir is a peculiarity of the large 
form known as the Parrot Crossbill, while the less robust 
Common Crossbill is considered not so well adapted to 
force open the very close-set scales of the pine-cone, but 
to restrict itself chiefly in its feeding to the seeds of Spruce 
and Larch. A good deal of theorizing has been built on 
this distinction. Mr. Edmund Selous, for instance, in 
Kirkman's British Bird-Book," speaks of the Parrot - 
Crossbill as a stronger and newer form evolved by the 
necessities of its heavier task when reduced to feeding on 
Scotch fir-cones ; and he also thinks it a vahd argument 
against Mr. Ussher's suggestion that the Crossbill's phimage 
A 2 
