seems to be the pine-forests of Scandinavia and Northern
Russia, in which it breeds from the interior of Lapland to
the middle of Norway and Sweden as well as to Livonia and
Estonia. The elder Yon Nordmann states also that it breeds
numerously in the G-houriel mountains, but it does not seem
to reach the Ural. It appears, chiefly as a winter-visitant,
in Poland and Germany, but is said to have been found
breeding in the latter. It also occasionally reaches Holland,
Belgium and France, besides Italy if authors may be credited,
but is unknown in Spain, while its appearance in Greece is
open to doubt. In all the details of reproduction it resembles
L. curviro'stra, but the nest and eggs as might be expected
are generally somewhat larger—the latter measuring from
*95 to ‘87 by from ‘69 to *62.
It is impossible to give any description of the plumage
of this bird which would distinguish it from the commoner
form, though the red is sometimes brighter. Wheelwright
says he has found the cock breeding in bright yellow apparel,
but that only once, and it seems to be subject to exactly the
same laws as regards its change of colour as L. cimirostva.
Herr Meves however mentions ((Efvers. Yet. Ak. Forh. 1860,
p. 211) a hen bird in red dress. Mr. Dresser who has perhaps
examined more specimens of both birds than any one
else gives the following as the measurements of each:—
L. pityopsittacus:—Whole length from 6-8 to 7, wing
from 4 to 4*8, tail from 2*7 to 2*8, tarsus *75, culmen *9,
height of bill at base '6, width of mandible at base -5 in.
L. curvirostra:—Whole length from 5’7 to 6, wing from
3*7 to 3-9, tail from 2*5 to 2-7, tarsus from -6 to -65, culmen
from -75 to -85, height of. bill at base -5, width of mandible
from *37 to '4 in.
PASSE RES. FRING1LLIDJE.
L oxia b ifa sc ia t a (C. L. Brehm.*)
THE TWO-BARRED CROSSBILL.
Loxia bifasciata.
T h is white-winged Crossbill was described as a new
species, in the year 1827, almost simultaneously by the
eldest Brehm and by Glogerf, to the former of whom the
priority of publication seems to belong; but ornithologists
were slow to believe in its distinctness from the American
form which had, as will presently be perceived, been long
before known, and the differences between the two were for
many years slighted or ignored, until the investigations of
Professor Nilsson and Baron de Selys-Longchamps set the
matter at rest. Brehm, however, to the last maintained that
* Crucirostra bifasciata, C. L. Brehm, Ornis, iii. p. 85 (1827).
f Loxia tcenioptera, (Roger, Isis, 1827, p. I l l