334 
Mr. Joseph I. S. Whitaker on the 
Professor Bobert Collett, of the Zoological Museum at 
Christiania, in reply to my inquiry, has kindly written to me 
on the point as follows :—- 
“ For several years there has not been a good cone-year for 
the spruce-fir in Norway, and the Crossbills have been very 
scarce with us for several years. This summer we observed 
small flocks of L. curvirostra in the beginning of July, not 
earlier. In the course of the month they totally dis¬ 
appeared, and we have not seen them since. They tried to 
eat the young green cones of the Larches in the gardens. 
I did not observe them in the forest, but heard that some 
were seen there, but the flocks have never been great with 
us this year. I should think that the wandering swarms 
came from the east.” 
The tardy ripening, or even in some cases the absolute 
lack, of the Crossbills' main sustenance was probably more 
or less general last year, not only in Northern Europe, but 
in the coniferous forests further east and south. Even from 
Italy reports of the scarcity of fruit on the pine- and fir-trees 
have been recorded. Prof. A. Bonomi, of Bovereto (Trent), 
writes that in that district, owing to the tempestuous 
weather experienced in the preceding spring, as he had him¬ 
self ascertained by personal observation, the coniferous woods 
were absolutely bare of fruit. Even so far south as Sicily 
vegetation generally was in a most backward state last year, 
owing to the severities of the previous winter and spring. 
On the whole, there appear to be good grounds for sup¬ 
posing that the Crossbills’ food-supply was deficient last 
year throughout the whole of the species' true habitat ; and 
until some better reason can be assigned for it, 1 think we 
are justified in considering that fact to be the reason of the 
birds wandering from their home. 
The theory of an unusually prolific breeding-season 
having driven a considerable number of the birds to seek a 
home elsewhere is hardly to be entertained, nor could it, I 
may venture to think, suffice to account for the extra¬ 
ordinary migration experienced last year. 
With regard to the country or countries from which the 
