212 
FRINGILLTD/TC. 
fVSESSORES. 
CON TROST RES!. 
FRINGILLIDJS . 
CROSSBILL. 
Loxia curvirostra. 
PLATE LIV. FIGS. II. AND III. 
The kindness of Mr. Arthur Strickland enabled me 
to figure an egg of the Crossbill in the “British Oology.” 
This egg differs very considerably from that with which 
the liberality of Mr. Yarrell supplied me for the “ Eggs 
of British Birds.” On the former egg the spots are light, 
and of the colour of those on the various species of tit¬ 
mouse ; the latter is, on the contrary, marked with a 
depth of colour, which distinguishes it from the eggs 
of the green-linnet, to which it bears much resemblance. 
Mr. Strickland's egg was taken, together with the nest, 
from the branches of a larch fir-tree, near his brother's 
residence at Boynton, near Burlington, in Yorkshire, 
during the summer of 1829. The nest was built of 
sticks, loosely put together, and crossed in a manner 
similar to that of the ring-dove, and mixed with white 
lichens, in the same way as the more clumsily-built nests 
of the hawfinch. 
The eggs now figured are sent me by two kind friends. 
Fig. 2 is from Mr. Doubleday of Epping, who says that 
“ the nest was nearly at the top of a spruce-fir, in a plan¬ 
tation just by the town. It was something like a green¬ 
finch's, but had very little moss in it, being principally 
built of small twigs of larch, and lined with hair and a 
few feathers.” An egg in the collection of Mr. Bond, 
