changing back to dull brown, as dark as, or even darker than
their early plumage. This is probably the effect of unnatural
conditions such as particular food, and the want of
air and light—all of which must exercise a debilitating influence
on them as on other birds.
Young females, after their first striated dress, acquire a
greenish-yellow tint on the crown, and the lower parts of the
body, mixed with greyish-brown; the rump and upper tail-,
coverts of primrose-yellow, tinged with green ; wings, tail
and legs, as in the male. The lower figure of the group is
from a female.
The Crossbill varies a little in size, measuring from six
inches and a quarter to seven inches in length ; the average
extent of the wings from tip to tip, is about eleven inches;
from the carpal joint to the end of the longest primary three
inches and three-quarters; the third a very little shorter
than the second; the fourth a little shorter than the third,
and the fifth feather one quarter of an inch shorter than the
fourth.
Besides specimens in my own collection, killed in July,
September, November and January; others selected. with
reference to particular states of plumage, and various opportunities
of examining examples kept in confinement, I have
been favoured with many more from Mr. W. Wells of Bed-
leaf, Mr. W. Browne of Cheam, Mr. Joseph Clarke of
Saffron-Walden and Mr. H. Doubleday.516
The peculiar form of the hill in this bird, altogether unique
among animals,! had long excited the attention of zoologists,
and De Buffon, in 1775, especially distinguished himself by
The series of specimens at the Author’s disposal was doubtless far larger
than ornithologists of the time were accustomed to consult, but it may be remarked
that the present state of science requires a much more extended comparison to
obtain satisfactory results. Messrs. Sharpe and Dresser enumerate one hundred
examples (from various localities) as having been examined by them, and the
Editor must have handled nearly as many.
f As an occasional monstrosity, the result of overgrowth of the horny casing
of the bill, the peculiarity has, however, been many times observed in other
groups of birds and especially among the Grows. Such cases may well be compared
to the malformation often seen in mammals of the order Glires, wherein
the incisors often grow to inordinate length.
calling it (Hist. Nat. Ois. iii. pp. 449, 450) a defect—an
error of Nature, which could not fail to he very inconvenient
to the bird in feeding—though he had the direct evidence of
several observers to the contrary.* This view was first
strenuously opposed by Townson (Tracts and Observations
on Natural History &c. London: 1799, pp. 116-123)
who, having carefully studied the Crossbill’s habits in Germany
charged the account given by “ the French Pliny
with being “ as void of sound philosophy as of the knowledge
of the facts,” and È characterised by strong marks of error,
carelessness and presumption.” The observations of this
naturalist are in nearly every particular apt and accurate,
but much yet remained to-he known, and it was not till
thirty years later that the beautiful structure and mode of
application of this wonderfully specialized organ was explained
(Zool. Journ. iv. pp. 459-465, pi. xiv. figs. 1-7). The
description then given, with a copy of its accompanying
illustrations, is here reproduced in a condensed form, for, so
greatly has the knowledge of zoological anatomy advanced
since it first appeared, that much which was then wanted by
even the scientific reader for its proper understanding is fortunately
now unnecessary.!
The specimen examined was one in which the upper
mandible, or, to speak technically, the maxilla, curved to
* De Buffon’s special animosity on this point may be suspected to bave arisen
from an old legend (which however he does not notice) best known to English
readers by Mr. Longfellow’s version of Mosen’s poem, to the effect that this bird
acquired its peculiar conformation of bill and coloration of plumage from its
efforts to release the suffering Saviour at the crucifixion. Schwenckfeld (op. at.
pp. 253, 254) has given this pretty fable in the “ egregium Elegiacum carmen
D.D. Johannis Major is poëtce celeberrimi” of some fifteen couplets, from which
one may here be quoted :—
Fama est, has [sc. aves] rostro tentasse revellere clavos,
In cruce pendentem qvi tenuere Deum.
The whole poem has been lately reprinted (Notes and Queries, Ser. 5, vii.
p. 505). , "
•t- It must be stated also that certain anatomical terms at tbat time jjg vogue
have now no longer the same meaning as then, while others have completely
dropped out of use. The Editor has therefore tried to replace them by their
modern equivalents.