AMERICAN CROSSBILL. 
41 
peculiarity of manners, are strikingly different from those of 
the Grosbeaks, yet many, disregarding these plain and obvious 
discriminations, still continue to consider them as belonging to 
the genus Loxia ; as if the particular structure of the bill should, 
in all cases but this, be the criterion by which to judge of a 
species ; or perhaps, conceiving themselves the wiser of the 
two, they have thought proper to associate together what 
Nature has, in the most pointed manner, placed apart. 
In separating these birds, therefore, from the Grosbeaks, 
and classing them as a family by themselves, substituting the 
specific for the generic appellation, I have only followed the 
steps and dictates of that great Original, whose arrangements 
ought never to be disregarded by any who would faithfully 
copy her. 
The Crossbills are subject to considerable changes of colour ; 
the young males of the present species being, during the first 
season, olive yellow, mixed with ash ; then bright greenish 
yellow, intermixed with spots of dusky olive, all of which 
yellow plumage becomes, in the second year, of a light red, 
having the edges of the tail inclining to yellow. When 
confined in a cage, they usually lose the red colour at the 
first moulting, that tint changing to a brownish yellow, which 
remains permanent. The same circumstance happens to the 
Purple Finch and Pine Grosbeak, both of which, when in 
confinement, exchange their brilliant crimson for a motley 
garb of light brownish yellow; as I have had frequent 
opportunities of observing. 
The male of this species, when in perfect plumage, is five 
inches and three quarters long, and nine inches in extent ; the 
bill is a brown horn colour, sharp, and single-edged towards 
the extremity, where the mandibles cross each other; the 
general colour of the plumage is a red-lead colour, brightest 
on the rump, generally intermixed on the other parts with 
touches of olive ; wings and tail, brown black, the latter forked, 
and edged with yellow ; legs and feet, brown ; claws, large, 
much curved, and very sharp ; vent, white, streaked with dark 
