THE CROSSBILL. 
277 
frost, and once since ; and now this time, when there certainly 
has been severer frost than usual,” vol. ii. p. 153. Mr. B. Ball 
informed me in 1842, that during his residence at Youghal, this 
species was known to him as occurring but once in the south, 
upwards of thirty years ago, when it committed great devastation 
in the orchards : its appearance in the south of the county of 
Cork, about that period, has been reported to me by others, 
who state that it was looked upon as an extraordinary rarity 
probably the same flight of birds is alluded to by all. M f Skim- 
min, in his History of Carrickfergus, mentions a flock being seen 
there in July, 1811. Mr. Ensor, in an article contributed to the 
6th volume of the Magazine of Natural History (p. 81), dated Ar- 
dress, county of Armagh, remarks : — “ There was a flight of these 
birds in my plantations for weeks in 1813 or 1814.”* In 1821, 
when crossbills were so abundant in Scotland, they visited Ireland 
also, and some were killed about Belfast. A venerable friend has 
from his early years known them as occasional winter visitants to 
the neighbourhood of this town, and has captured them, when 
feeding, by means of fishing-rods smeared with bird-lime. 
Since my own attention has been given to the subject, the crossbill 
* loxia coccothraustes is the scientific name applied to the bird referred to, hut 
from the observation that it is significantly called “ cross-beak,” it seems to me war- 
rantable to conclude that Loxia curvirostra is meant. 
Mr. Robert Millen has mentioned to me, that near Ballyclare (co. Antrim), about 
the year 1814, he became possessed of a crossbill by flinging a stone at a bird in a larch 
fir, which he believed from its colour to be a green-linnet. It was only stunned 
by the blow of the stone, and soon recovered. He kept it as a pet bird for about nine 
months, and provided fir cones as food, from which the seeds were adroitly extracted. 
The Rev. Dr. Walsh, in his work entitled “ A Residence at Constantinople,” men- 
tions his having obtained a crossbill ( Loxia curvirostra) just after its being snared in 
a tree near that city, and states, that “ it became as familiar as a parrot, sat on my 
shoulder while I wrote, and whistled to me for food. I discovered that it [the 
species ?] particularly frequented Turkish cemeteries, and was most commonly met 
with among the cypress trees. I collected, therefore, some of the cypress cones, and 
whenever he whistled, I presented him with one. He took it with great dexterity 
in one of his claws, and holding it up, he hopped to his perch on the other leg. He 
then split open with his cross beak the tough divisions of the cone with a force, and got 
out the seeds with a dispatch, that mandibles of any other construction could never 
accomplish. I kept this familiar and interesting bird for several months, till a rapa- 
cious kite, hovering over the palace garden, made a stoop, and destroyed it. I called 
it NepowroXi, its modern Greek name, and it answered to the sound by a whistle.” 
vol. ii. p. 111. 
