7t) THE BIRDS OF HAMPSHIRE. 
The next large flight seems to have visited the county 
about the year 1855, in which year Dr. Rake hiformed 
Wise^ that a parrot crossbill was killed at Breamore, 
November 28th, 1855, out of a flock of a dozen, and that 
a few days afterwards several more were killed. 
Wise also records that Mr. Farrar mentions a common 
crossbill's nest built in a fir-tree in a garden near Lynd- 
hurst, June, 1858, off which the birds were shot, but 
unfortunately not preserved, though their identity is 
beyond dispute. (The date, however, of this nest is 
unusually late.) And he says that a large flock frequented 
the plantations round Burley in December, 1861. 
The other two specimens of the parrot crossbill in 
F. Bond's collection were killed near Christchurch in 
1862,2 and the example in Hart's collection of this larger 
form bears the same date. 
In the year 1877, Mr. G. J. D. Lee wrote to the 
"Zoologist," recording a nest with four young, found on 
March i6th in a fir on the outskirts of Bournemouth ; and 
four specimens in the Alton Museum are labelled " Alton, 
1878." 
Bell's edition of White's Selborne, published in 1877, 
mentions that the crossbill has nested at Alton, but gives 
no date. About the year 1892, another large flight visited 
the New Forest district, and, for a time, they were said to 
be as common as sparrows in the streets of Bournemouth. 
A pair preserved with their nest in the Hart collection 
are dated March 31st of that year, and Mr. W. H. Turle 
wrote to the " Hampshire Chronicle " that he saw a brood 
being fed by their parents in Southampton Cemetery on 
July loth. 
' "New Forest." 1862. 
= Yarrell. 
