402 
PERCHING BIRDS. 
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with ashy bases to the feathers; the wings and tail being dusky brown, with the 
feathers edged with rose-colour. The female has the general colour of the upper- 
parts ashy grey; the crown of the head and sides of the face golden olive-yellow, 
spreading on to the mantle; and the throat and under surface ashy grey, washed 
with golden-olive. 
The crossbills are distinguished from all the other members of 
Th e Crossbills ° 
the avian class by the crossing of the tips of the two mandibles of 
the beak. In general conformation the beak is hard, strong, and thick at the 
base, with the lower mandible curving upwards, and its point crossing that of 
the upper one; a structural conformation enabling these birds to extract with 
facility the seeds deeply buried beneath the overlapping scales of the fir-cones 
on which they feed. This peculiar structure is, however, developed only in the 
adult, young birds in the nest having the beak of normal conformation. As 
regards other characters, the crossbills have the wings long and pointed, and the 
tail forked and relatively short in proportion to the wings. 
While the males of the crossbills are gaily attired in scarlet crimson and 
orange plumage, green and yellow are the predominating hues of the females. 
Crossbills inhabit the pine-forests of both the Old and New Worlds, extending 
from Siberia to the Himalaya in the Eastern Hemisphere, and in the Western 
ranging from Arctic North America into Mexico. 
When wandering through the pine-forests of Northern Scotland or Western 
Norway, the cry of the crossbill (Loxia curvirostra ) often greets the traveller 
from amongst the fir-cones, directing his attention to the bright-plumaged birds 
skilfully extracting the seeds of the conifers, whilst hanging gracefully in every 
variety of attitude. One such scene is firmly imprinted on our memory; where, 
while the edge of a pine-wood, richly carpeted with blaeberries, lay in the back¬ 
ground, in the foreground a little flock of crossbills were swinging gaily round the 
branches of an isolated forest tree; and visitors to Bournemouth will recall 
memories of these birds among the pines which form their favourite nesting-resort. 
One of the most recent descriptions of the habits of the crossbill in the nesting- 
season is by Mr. Ussher, who writes that he has had unusually good opportunities 
of observing these birds, since no less than four pairs built within a short distance 
of his house. Among them, one was a male in the immature yellow plumage, 
while the other three cock-birds were red, or red mingled with brown. Early in 
March one of these crossbills was observed carrying twigs to the top of a Scotch 
fir, in which the nest was subsequently discovered, although it could only be seen 
from the ground by a person standing immediately below it and looking straight 
up through the tree against the sky. “ This tree,” writes Mr. Ussher, from whose 
description the remainder of this account is abbreviated, “ is the outer of a group, 
and is bare of living branches to within a short distance of its top, which consists 
of a mass of green, bending over from the west winds, in the midst of which the 
nest was built among the thick tufts. The finder saw the crossbills visit it 
frequently with building materials; and I saw several times the birds fly to 
and from it, and recognised the male by his redness. This pair probably reared 
their young in safety, for, on 10th May, a pair of crossbills were seen feeding 
their young on larch-trees in the vicinity of this nest. A second nest was subse- 
