THE CROSSBEAKS. 
149 
concludes his interesting history by telling us that the males 
of this bird^ unlike the males of the allied genus Eitplectes, 
have no summer tints which they throw aside in winter. The 
female lays three or four eggs of a bluish-white colour, 
freely mottled at the blunt end with small brown spots. 
Seeds, and occasionally small insects, form their food. 
A finely illustrated monograph of the Loxia family was 
published in 1850 by Charles Lucien Bonaparte and Schle- 
gel, in which are figured the curious Crossbeaks {Loma), 
which feed exclusively on the seeds of the fir tribe of trees ; 
their crossed beaks, when open and fixed against resinous 
cones, press against them, which soon breaks them up, and 
allows the dexterous bird to get at the nutritious seeds within. 
The males of these birds, in their spring plumage, which is 
more or less bright red, with dark wings and tail, the former 
barred with white, must very much decorate the sombre trees 
on which they live, and give animation to the dreary north- 
ern or alpine situations in which they are found. A bright- 
looking linnet, the male of which has a pinky-red plumage 
{Carpodaciis Sinaicus), was found by Hemprich and Ehren- 
berg among the solitudes of Sinai, which, if it resembles 
its cousin, our sprightly linnet, this pretty bird must often 
make cheerful to the wandering Arab by its song. The 
