Crossbills. — The article on Crossbills, in 
“Vol. VI. No. 3,” reminds me of an 
incident occurring three years ago during 
a trip to Tennessee. I was hunting for 
specimens on a clearing near Rugby, in 
the eastern part of the State, when a bird 
was startled and flew to a wall a rod or two 
off. My eye was no sooner focused, as it 
were, on him, than he dropped on the op- 
posite side of the wall ; but on my running 
up, he was non est. The three or four 
seconds I saw him were sufficient to dis- 
tinguish the outlines of a Crossbill; but 
the place and season (August) were more 
powerful an argument than my momentary 
glance, and I passed on, thinking I was 
deceived by the quickness of the occur- 
rence. A day or two later I was surprised, 
on visiting the same place, by procuring 
three veritable.Red-winged Crossbills from 
a flock of five — two adults, one immature. 
Two weeks after, while deer-hunting four- 
teen miles from the former place, I saw 
another, but only having a rifle, it was not 
taken. Several days after this I lulled two 
more, four miles from the first place. My 
last specimen was taken a mile from the 
last locality. The habits of my birds 
seemed to differ essentially from others of 
this erratic species. The country was cov- 
ered with oak forests ; the birds, keeping 
near the extremities of broken limbs, ex- 
ploring the holes and crevices, pulling 
away the decayed wood, and devouring the 
insects contained therein. My last speci- 
men was shot from the roof of a log-house 
stable. The workmen said the birds were 
often seen thereabouts, and fed on the 
manure incident to the locality. 
Mr. Allen kindly compared my birds 
with a large series of northern and Mexi- 
can types, and considers them an interme- 
diate variety, as regards the formation of 
their feet and bills. My adults were all 
much redder than the Mexican variety. 
From the diversity of the locations, tes- 
timony of the natives, the plumage of the 
birds and the season of the year, it is to be 
inferred that the occurrence was not acci- 
dental and that they bred in Tennessee. 
Sorry I am unable to give complete de- 
tails, as my note-book and the skins are 
with my collection in Boston. — G. S. 
> Smith , London , Ganada.0»&0» V111. -Jan. 1883. p. 7 
The Red Crossbill ( Loxia curvirostra americana) in Tennessee. — 
The morning of August 7, 1880, found the writer collecting in the woods 
near Rugby on the Cumberland Plateau in East Tennessee. Coming to 
a clearing, I observed, among other birds, two which at first I did not 
recognize. The “ clearings ” of that section differ from those in other 
parts of the country. Lumber being comparatively valueless in that 
region, the settlers kill the trees by girdling, leaving them standing. In 
time all but the largest limbs fall, and the trunks become rotten and filled 
with vermin; thus they are the resort of Woodpeckers for both feeding 
and breeding purposes. It was in such a locality, and on the top of one 
of the largest trunks, that I saw a small bird, whose plumage I could not 
distinguish against the sky, hopping up and down and around the trunk, 
seemingly extracting insects from the decayed knot-holes. Supposing it 
to be a species of Nuthatch, I shot it, when I was greatly astonished to 
pick up a Red Crossbill. The report of my gun revealed the whereabouts 
of four more, the remainder of the flock. Observation of theii habits 
showed me they kept near the tops or broken ends of the limbs, hopping 
about and crawling under them after the manner of Woodpeckers. As I 
shot another, the rest rose high in the air and, with an irregular, undula- 
ting flight, disappeared. My specimens proved to be in good plumage. 
I subsequently saw two more in a barn-yard some four miles from the 
first locality. I was informed that they had been frequently seen there- 
abouts of late, but the natives were unable to identify them. I shot one 
of them, — a fine male, whose upper tail-coverts were of an unusually bril- 
liant red. I find entered in my notebook that on August 13 I saw two 
more while on a deer hunt fourteen miles from the other places. Of 
course, under the circumstances, I was unable to shoot them. _ This would 
seem to show that the first flock was not an accidental occurrence. 
The Tennessee Plateau is a comparatively level section of country about 
one hundred miles long and forty miles wide, with an average elevation of 
two thousand feet above the adjacent region. Its forests consist almost 
entirely of white oaks, interspersed with chestnuts, and occasionally a 
pine. This, with the above statements, indicate that the habits of my 
birds differ materially from those of others of this erratic species. 
In respect to external characters, Mr. J. A. Allen, after having compared 
my birds with a large series of New England specimens and with examples 
of var. mexicana from Colorado, writes me that the Tennessee specimens 
present no essential difference in average measurement, but that the bill is 
considerably larger than in average New England examples, but much 
smaller than that of mexicana. The plumage of the males is much 
brighter than in northern specimens. The Tennessee birds he regards as 
almost exactly intermediate between the Red Crossbills of Northern New 
England and those of Colorado. — G. S. Smith, Boston , Mass. 
Bull, N.O.C. Jan, ,1881, p. . 
3 ? 
