THE COMMON CROSSBILL. 
187 
the State of Maine assured me that they had found it on pine trees in the 
middle of winter, and while the earth was deeply covered with snow. The 
people employed in cutting pine timber at that season, when it is easier to 
remove the logs to the rivers, in which they are subsequently floated when 
the ice melts, have very frequently told me, that on felling a tree they have 
caught the young Crossbills, which had been jerked out of their nest. 
Several of my acquaintances in that district promised to send me nests, 
eggs, and young ; but as yet, I am sorry to say, none of them have reached 
me. While at Labrador I was much disappointed at not finding a single 
bird of this species, although the White-winged Crossbill was tolerably 
abundant there ; and in Newfoundland matters were precisely the same. 
The Crossbill lives in flocks, composed apparently of several families, and 
is an extremely gentle and social bird. They are easily approached, caught 
in traps, or even killed with a stick. So unsuspicious are they with respect 
to man, that they not unfrequently come up to the very door of the wood- 
man’s cabin, and pick the mud with which he has plastered the spaces 
between the logs of which it is composed. When the huts are raised on 
blocks, to prevent dampness, they are often seen under them, picking up 
the earth for want of better food, while the weather is at its coldest. 
Their food consists principally of the seeds contained in the cones of 
different species of the pine and fir. In the pine forests of Pennsylvania I 
saw them feeding on those of the white pine, the hemlock, and the spruce, 
as well as on various kinds of fruits. Wherever an apple-tree bore fruit, 
the Crossbills were sure to be on it, cutting the apples to pieces in order to 
get at the seeds, in the manner of our Parakeet of the south. Nothing can 
exceed the dexterity with which they extricate the seeds from the cones 
with their bill, the point of the upper mandible of which they employ as a 
hook, placing it at the base of the seed, and drawing it up with a sudden 
jerk of the head. They frequently stand on one foot only, and employ the 
other in conveying the food to the bill, in the manner of parrots. They 
are fond of all saline matter. 
The flight of this species is undulating, firm, tolerably swift, and capable 
of being protracted over a large space. While travelling they pass in the 
air in straggling flocks, and keep up a constant noise, each individual now 
and then emitting a clear note or call. They move with ease on the 
ground, alight sidewise on the walls of houses and on trees, on the twigs 
of which they climb with the aid of their bill. When caged they soon 
become tame, and are fed without any difficulty. 
I have presented you with a flock of these Crossbills, composed of indi- 
viduals of different ages, engaged in their usual occupations, on a branch 
of their favourite tree, the hemlock pine. 
