The American Cross-Bill. 
203 
From the Journal of the Cincinnati Society of Natural History, January, 1888. 
THE AMERICAN CROSS-BILL, Loxia ( L .) curvirostra minor; 
(. Brehm .) AS TO SOME OF ITS HABITS AND ITS 
FONDNESS FOR SALT. 
By William Hubbell Fisher. 
Read November i and December 6, 1887. 
During my stay in the Adirondacks, I was much interested in 
the American Cross-bill, Loxia ( L .) curvirostra minor , [Brehm). 
One of the most marked and interesting characteristics of this bird is 
its fondness for living in the close neighborhood of human abodes, 
and its boldness in the presence of man. As I observed them 
during the latter part of August and the first part of September of 
this year (1887), at Dunbar’s grounds, Stillwater, on Beaver River, 
in Township number five of Brown’s Tract, Lewis County, New 
York, these birds reminded me of the European sparrow, in the 
numbers in which they flocked around the hotel, and around the 
empty cottages in front of the hotel. With the rising sun they 
would begin their “cheep,” “cheep.” They would fly in a flock 
to a small tree about eight feet high, near the kitchen, and in such 
numbers as literally to fill the branches. Anon, you would see a. 
whole row of them on a fence between the hotel and the side cabin, 
and while sitting there they would allow you, in passing, to ap- 
proach so near that one was tempted to touch them with the hand. 
At another time you would see a garbage pile covered with them. 
They enjoyed sitting on a peak or ridge-pole of a cottage where 
the roof on each side slanted up to a meeting line. A favorite 
place for some of them was the slender flag-pole; one would sit on 
the top, while others seemed to enjoy hanging to the sides of the 
pole and looking around at the world beneath. 
From Dunbar’s three of us made an excursion northward past 
the Kettle-hole, near which the sheriff of Lewis County was so badly 
frozen last spring, while assisting to stock one of the lakes with 
fish, then past Slim Pond, thence to Raven Lake, where we were 
hospitably entertained at the camp of Rufus J. Richardson, by the 
latter and his pleasant, agreeable family. I had not been seated 
in their camp more than ten minutes before a couple of birds 
audaciously swept down and confronted us — cross-bills again. 
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