Conspicuously Red of any Shade 
going out of the front door your rara avis may be eating the 
crumbs about your kitchen. Even with our eyes and ears con- 
stantly alert for some fresh bird excitement, our phlegmatic 
neighbor over the way may be enjoying a visit from a whole 
flock of the very bird we have been looking and listening for in 
vain all the year. The red crossbills are capricious little visitors, 
it is true, but by no means uncommon. 
About the size of an English sparrow, of a brick or Indian 
red color, for the most part, the peculiarity of its parrot-like beak 
is its certain mark of identification. 
Longfellow has rendered into verse the German legend of the 
crossbill, which tells that as the Saviour hung upon the cross, a 
little bird tried to pull out the nails that pierced His hands and 
feet, thus twisting its beak and staining its feathers with the 
blood. 
At first glance the birds would seem to be hampered by their 
crossed beaks in getting at the seeds in the pine cones — a super- 
ficial criticism when the thoroughness and admirable dexterity of 
their work are better understood. 
Various seeds of fruits, berries, and the buds of trees enlarge 
their bill of fare. They are said to be inordinately fond of salt. 
Mr. Romeyn B. Hough tells of a certain old ice-cream freezer that 
attracted flocks of crossbills one winter, as a salt-lick attracts deer. 
Whether the traditional salt that may have stuck to the bird’s tail 
is responsible for its tameness is not related, but it is certain the 
crossbills, like most bird visitors from the far north, are remark- 
ably gentle, friendly little birds. As they swing about the pine 
trees, parrot-fashion, with the help of their bill, calling out kimp, 
kimp, that sounds like the snapping of the pine cones on a sunny 
day, it often seems easily possible to catch them with the hand. 
There is another species of crossbill, called the White- winged 
(Loxia leucoptera), that differs from the preceding chiefly in hav- 
ing two white bands across its wings and in being more rare. 
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