68 
rose he shot one which proved to be a male Red Crossbill in breeding 
plumage. He preserved the skin and still has it. The others were 
females or young, as he says none of them had any red on them. 
Mr. Jonathan Dwight reported the American Crossbill on North Moun- 
tain, Penn., in June, 1891. (The Auk. Yol. IX., p. 137.) Dr. B. H. War- 
ren, in his admirable “ Report on the Birds of Pennsylvania, ’ p. 228, 
gives it as breeding in the counties of Clinton, Clearfield, Luzerne, Ly- 
coming and Cameron in that state. 
March 1, 1892, Messrs. A. B. Ulrey and E. M. Kindle report seeing six in 
Monroe county, Ind. Mr. G. G. Williamson noted six near Muncie, Ind., 
April 16, 1892, and another April 24. Messrs. Charles D. and Lewis A. 
Test have kindly sent me the following interesting notes from the obser- 
vations of the spring of 1892. The notes were taken near Lafayette, Ind. 
March 8, 1892, they saw the first American Crossbill. They were seen 
on the following succeeding dates : March 11 ; April 15, 19, 23 and 30 ; 
May 1, 3, 6, 8, 18, 20, 21, 27 and 30 ; June 2, 6, 22, 23, 27 and 30. The birds 
were seen in pine trees and also in yards and along the road. Search was 
made for nests but none were found. I am indebted to Mr. Otto Wid- 
mann for some valuable notes relating to the American Crossbill in Mis- 
souri last winter and spring and summer (1891-2). He says: “I never 
suspected these cone loving nomads to descend into a country so flat and 
uninteresting as St. Louis county, Mo., where nature never rears a cone 
without the help of the gardener. Thousands of young evergreens, especi- 
ally Norway Spruces, have been planted during the past decade, but old 
cone-bearing conifers are few and far between. There are on my place, 
besides a few Norway Spruces, eighteen pine trees about thirty years old. 
Half of them are Austrian pines, the rest White and Scotch pines. Coni- 
ferous trees do not bear fruit every year, but last winter the Austrian 
pines were full of cones, getting ready to drop the seeds in early spring. 
Besides the maturing pine seeds our section had another attraction for 
erratic fruit eaters in the orchards. The apple trees had yielded an enor- 
mous crop and the demand not being sufficiently great to gather them in 
time, thousands of apples were still hanging in the trees when the Cross- 
bills appeared on the scene. It was in the orchard that they made their 
appearance on November 13 — the day after the first 1 blizzard ’ had visited 
the upper Missouri valley. From this day on, the Crossbills remained in 
the neighborhood until the end of the month but none were here in De- 
cember and January — at least I did not notice any until they began to 
69 
visit my pine trees in February. They were daily visitors all through 
March and until the 17th of April. From that day until May 8th none 
were seen, but from the 8th to the 14th they were again daily callers. 
After this date they were noticed twice ; a party of six on June 5th, and 
two birds a male and female, in one of my pines on July 21st. I looked 
for their nest in the tree but, unfortunately it was not there ! I think 
now that I have met with the species on several occasions in former years 
but did not know them. Frequenters of private gardens they were only 
seen when on wing or distant tree tops, and evaded identification. With 
us it is a shy and restless bird, easily alarmed and flying a great distance. 
Before taking wing and while in the air they are quite noisy with a note 
closely resembling the parent call of Progne ; but when feeding in a pine 
tree the whole troop keeps perfectly silent, and nothing is heard but the 
noise made by breaking the cone scales. When present in May they are 
also feeding in elms.” Mr. W. S. Blatchley gives me the following notes : 
“ While sitting on the porch of a farm house in Putnam county, Indiana, 
July 11, 1892, I saw a single Crossbill, Loxia curvirostra minor, alight in the 
top of a pine tree in the yard and begin searching the cones for seeds. I 
watched it for almost ten minutes and then, that there might be no pos- 
sibility of mistake in the identification, procured a gun and shot it. It 
proved to be a young male. On July 15 another young male, i. e. a male 
presumably of the previous year’s hatching, was secured from the same 
tree and kept in confinement for several days, but was finally allowed its 
liberty.” 
The American Crossbills have, as has been shown, been noted within 
the region between the great lakes and _ the Ohio river in the follow- 
ing winters: 1868-9; 1869-70; 1874-5; 1882-3; 1883-4; 1884-5; 1885-6; 
1887-8 ; 1888-9 ; 1889-90 ; 1890-91 ; 1891-2. From 1882 to 1892 they were 
only absent one year; 1886-7. In the winters of 1882-3, 1884-5, 1887-8 
the area of dispersal was wide and the birds seem to have been generally 
distributed. Other years as 1868-9, 1869-70, 1883-4, they appeared, or at 
least were observed, in but few localities but where noted they were 
abundant. 
The results of the inquiries concerning its summer range, particularly 
with relation to the Ohio valley and the territory adjacent thereto, have 
been wholly unexpected. Summing up the occurrence in summer and 
the evidence of its breeding in the region last referred to we note as fol- 
lows : In the summer of 1869 they were abundant in the vicinity of 
