I always find the Crossbill nearer a domestic bird than 
any other. It is as tame as the English- Sparrow . In march I have 
seen two hundred m a flock feeding in a lumber camp door yard. 
They eat the tea grounds and pick up the snow where the dish water 
is thrown. They also come around the camp fires, scratching the 
ashes where the tea and dish water, have been thrown. I have known 
one to get its feet burned by going so far as to scratch into the 
live coals. Though I have no proof of it, I think they wpuld nest 
in sheds and hovels to be near people, if trees were not handy, as 
T have seen the R 
( Purple Pinch) do in the California 
mining camps. 
Excuse me for writing so much about them, but I have studied 
them a great deal ano do not know how much chance you have had to 
see them. { I have seen them pecking the clay chinking out of a 
log house, prohabl, because the clay was saturated with dish 
w at e r and u r i n e . 
