May, 1910 
NOTES ON THE NORTHWESTERN CROSSBILL 
91 
they will come onto the city lawns and pick up the nuts right at ones feet, and I 
have had them come down and drink where I was watering the lawn. They are 
especially fond of salt, and a large flock of them was frequenting the salt-licks at 
the head of the Middle Weiser River, Idaho, when I was there some years since. 
They will eat the soil for the salt wherever they can find it. 
The nest is built of dead tamarack twigs for a foundation and outer walls, in- 
terwoven with much dry fine grass and a few dry pine needles. The lining is an 
abundance of long, black moss from tamarack trees, and a few 7 soft feathers, mak- 
ing a good, w T arm nest, placed in the divergent small branches of a horizontal 
branch from four to eight feet out from the tree-trunk. One w 7 as directly in the 
center of a heavy bunch of long needles at the very tip of a ninety-foot pine and 
Fig. 27. nest of the red crossriel 
was so concealed by the denseness of the growth that the nest w 7 as not visible. 
The climber begged to come down, believing there was no nest there, but I had 
spent too many hours locating it to come away without it. It was no mean task 
to secure this nest, but my climber is an expert lineman. All these nests were 
built among the needles, so as to be perfectly concealed, and if the bird did not re- 
veal the place, it w 7 ould be impossible to locate it. All the nests were in pines and 
next to inaccessible. Measurements for one nest are sufficient, as they are as like as 
peas in a pod. Outside diameter, four by five inches; inside, tw 7 o and one-half. 
Outside depth, three; inside, one and one-half. With the settings it is very artis- 
tic. The photos show how 7 w 7 ell hidden the nests are. 
There are three sets of these pretty eggs before me, with their respective nests. 
