336 
Mr. Joseph I. S. Whitaker on the 
have not already done so, and there find an abundant supply 
of food awaiting them in the tardily ripened cones. 
With regard to the extent of last year’s migration, it may 
be said to have embraced practically the greater part of 
Europe, having reached southward as far as the Mediterra¬ 
nean, expanding laterally on both sides, east and west, 
almost as far, perhaps, as the limits of our Continent. The 
migration does not appear to have extended to any part of 
North Africa, although the Italian Islands in the Mediterra¬ 
nean, and even Malta, were visited by the birds in considerable 
numbers. Thinking it likely that some of the wanderers, 
being so near the African coast, might have crossed over to 
Tunis, I wrote to M. Blanc of that city in July and again 
in October, inquiring if any Crossbills had been observed 
there, but the reply on both occasions was in the negative* 
Had any of the birds crossed over to Tunis I think that 
they would not have escaped the notice of the sharp- 
eyed Arab bird-catchers ; and they could hardly have been 
confused with the local subspecies, L. curvirostra poliogyna, 
which inhabits the higher mountains of the interior and 
does not approach the coast. 
Judging from the reports so far received, the migration, 
although fairly general throughout Europe, seems to have 
been more conspicuous in the central and eastern portion of 
the Continent than further west, but, looking at the -map, this 
seems only natural. What at first sight strikes us as rather 
remarkable is that the small islands, both those off our 
Scottish coast, as well as those in the Mediterranean, 
some of them particularly bare of vegetation, should have 
been visited by the birds to the extent they have been. This, 
however, is not so surprising as at first it would appear, for 
naturally there is more concentration, and less diffusion, of 
the arriving birds on the small islands than on the large, or 
on the mainland, and they are less likely to pass unobserved 
than when spread over a larger expanse of country. 
Although met with in almost every description of country, 
whether mountainous or plain, the pine and fir districts have 
naturally attracted the w r anderers more than others, and 
