_Loxia, leucoptera_, GM. Syst. Nat. I, 1788, 540.—AUD. Orn. Biog. IV,
1838, 467, pl. ccclxiv.—IB. Birds Am. III, 1841, 190, pl.
cci.—BON. & SCHL. Mon. Loxiens, 1850, 8, pl. ix.—GOULD, B. Gt.
Britain, V, 1864 (killed England, Sept. 17). _Curvirostra
leucoptera_, WILS. Am. Orn. IV, 1811, 48, pl. xxxi, f. 3.—BAIRD,
Birds N. Am. 1858, 427.—DALL & BANNISTER, Tr. Ch. Ac. I, 1869, 281
(Alaska).—COOPER, Orn. Cal. 1, 149.—SAMUELS, 293. _Crucirostra
leucoptera_, BREHM, Naumannia, I, 1853, 254, fig. 20. _Loxia
falcirostra_, LATH. Index, Orn. I, 1790, 371.
SP. CHAR. Bill greatly compressed, and acute towards the point. Male
carmine red, tinged with dusky across the back; the sides of body
under the wings streaked with brown; from the middle of belly to the
tail-coverts whitish, the latter streaked with brown. Scapulars,
wings, and tail black; two broad bands on the wings across the ends of
greater and median coverts; white spots on the end of the inner
tertiaries. _Female_ brownish, tinged with olive-green in places;
feathers of the back and crown with dusky centres; rump bright
brownish-yellow. Length about 6.25; wing, 3.50; tail, 2.60.
HAB. Northern parts of North America generally; Greenland (REINH.
Ibis, III, 1861, 8); England, (September 17, GOULD, Birds Great
Britain).
The white bands on the wings distinguish this species from the
preceding, although there are some other differences in form of bill,
feet, wing, etc. There is less variation in form and color among
specimens than in the preceding. It differs from the European
analogue, _L. bifasciata_, according to authors, in the more slender
body and bill, and in having the body pomegranate-red, with blackish
back, instead of cinnabar-red, as in _curvirostra_ and _americana_,
Bonaparte and Schlegel quote the American species as occurring in the
Himalaya Mountains, and perhaps Japan, but throw doubts on the
supposed European localities.
HABITS. Both the distribution and habits of this species are probably,
in all essential respects, the same with those of the preceding. It
is, if anything, a more northern bird, and it has not been detected
anywhere on the Pacific coast south of British America. It was found
in the Arctic regions by Sir John Richardson, where the other species
was not observed. He found it inhabiting the dense white-spruce
forests of the fur country, feeding principally on the seeds of their
cones. Up to the sixty-eighth parallel he found them ranging through
the whole breadth of the continent. It is supposed to go as far as
these woods extend, though it has not been traced farther than the
sixty-second degree. It was found feeding on the upper branches,
clinging to them when wounded, and remaining suspended even after
death. In September they collected in small flocks, and flew from tree
to tree with a chattering noise. In the depth of winter they retire
from the coast to the thick woods of the interior.
A few individuals of this species are recorded by Professor Reinhardt
as having been taken in South Greenland.
In Pennsylvania this species is much more rare than the _americana_,
and Wilson only met with a few specimens. Since his day it has been
found more abundantly, occasionally in the neighborhood of
Philadelphia.
Mr. Dall states that these birds were not uncommon near Nulato in the
winter. Several specimens were obtained in February and April. None
were found there in the summer. He speaks of their great expertness in
opening the spruce cones with their curved bills, and extracting the
seeds.
Its appearance in Eastern Massachusetts is much more irregular both as
to numbers and time than that of the other species. In the fall and
winter of 1868 and 1869 they were uncommonly abundant, appearing early
in the fall, and remaining until quite late in the spring. They were
even more fearless and tame than the _americana_, and in one instance
a pair were taken by the hand, and afterwards kept in confinement.
They appeared around Boston in large flocks, and remained through
April. One was shot in Newton by Mr. Maynard, June 13. It was found in
an apple-tree, and its crop was full of canker-worms. In Eastern Maine
it is resident throughout the year, and, like the other species,
breeds in winter. In Western Maine Professor Verrill has found it a
common winter visitant, but it is not known to be resident.
Near Springfield Mr. Allen considered this species a much less
frequent visitor than the preceding. In the winters of 1854 and 1860
he found them very abundant, occurring in large flocks.
Mr. Audubon, on his way to Labrador in 1833, found these birds quite
common, in May, among the islands of the Bay of Fundy, evidently
migrating, on their way to more northern regions. I, however, observed
none there during my visits in the summers of 1850 and 1851, although
a specimen was afterwards obtained on the Murre Islands, on the 30th
of June.
So far as they are known, the habits of this species are exactly
similar to those of the preceding. They feed in the same manner and
upon like food. Their flight is undulating and well sustained, and
their movements in the trees are not perceptibly different.
In the spring of 1869, Mr. Jillson, of Hudson, Mass., sent me a pair
of these birds which he had captured the preceding autumn. They were
very tame, and were exceedingly interesting little pets. Their
movements in the cage were like those of caged parrots in every
respect, except that they were far more easy and rapid. They clung to
the sides and upper wires of the cage with their feet, hung down from
them, and seemed to enjoy the practice of walking with their head
downward. They were in full song, and both the male and the female
were quite good singers. Their songs were irregular and varied, but
sweet and musical. They ate almost every kind of food, but were
especially eager for slices of raw apples. An occasional larch cone
was also a great treat to them. Although while they lived they were
continually bickering over their food, yet when the female was
accidentally choked by a bit of eggshell her mate was inconsolable,
ceased to sing, refused his food, and died of grief in a very few
days.
The White-winged Crossbill was seen more frequently by Mr. Ridgway
among the East Humboldt Mountains than the other species. It was first
noticed on the 12th of August among the cedars on the mountains. Its
fine plaintive cry of “_wēēk_” was entirely different from the
hurriedly uttered notes of the _C. americana_.
Several specimens of this Crossbill have been taken in Europe, where
their occurrence is of course accidental, irregular, and rare.
A nest of this species (S. I., 13,452), taken at Fredericton, New
Brunswick, by Dr. A. Adams, in 1868, is deeply saucer-shaped, and
composed of a rather thin wall of fibrous pale-green lichens, encased
on the outside with spruce twigs, and thinly lined with coarse hairs
and fine shreds of inner bark. Its external diameter is a little less
than four inches, the rim being almost perfectly circular; the cavity
is an inch and a half deep by two and a half broad.
The one egg is pale blue, the large end rather thickly spattered with
fine dots of black and ashy-lilac; is regularly or rather slightly
elongate-oval, the small end rather obtuse. It measures .80 of an inch
in length by .56 in breadth.