(_Loxia curvirostra minor_) Finch family
_Called also_: RED CROSSBILL
(Illustration facing p. 226)
_Length_--6 to 7 inches. About the size of the English
sparrow.
_Male_--General color Indian red, passing into brownish gray,
with red tinge beneath. Wings (without bands), also tail,
brown. Beak crossed at the tip.
_Female_--General color greenish yellow, with brownish tints.
Dull-yellowish tints on head, throat, breast, and underneath.
Wings and tail pale brown. Beak crossed at tip.
_Range_--Pennsylvania to northern British America. West of
Mississippi, range more southerly.
_Migrations_--Irregular winter visitor. November. Sometimes
resident until April.
It is a rash statement to say that a bird is rare simply because you
have never seen it in your neighborhood, for while you are going out
of the front door your _rara avis_ may be eating the crumbs about your
kitchen. Even with our eyes and ears constantly 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 superficial
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
remarkably 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 having two
white bands across its wings and in being more rare.