P A S SE RES. F RINGILLIDJE.
L oxia l e u c o p t e r a , J. F. Gmelin.*
THE WHITE-WINGED CROSSBILL.
Loxia leucoptera.
For a long time, the only known form of Crossbill with
white on its wings, this bird was originally described in 1788
under the above English name by Latham (Gen. Syn. B. ii. p.
108) who had received specimens from Hudson’s Bay and New
York. A few years later, the compiler Gmelin bestowed on
it the scientific appellation it still hears and thereby forestalled
its first describer’s wish, not expressed till 1790 (Ind.
Orn. i. p. 371), of calling it Loxia falcirostra. As has
been said already it was not for many years after that the
white-winged Crossbill of the Old World was recognized as
distinct from that of the New.
It is not improbable that a specimen or more of American
origin may have been among those white-winged Crossbills
* Syst. Nat. i. p. 844 (1788).
that have occurred in this country without being subjected to
the eye of a critical ornithologist, and it is certain that with
several writers professing to treat only of British or European
species Wbstern examples have done duty for Eastern;
hut there are three undoubted instances of birds, which
agree in every respect with specimens obtained in America,
finding their way to England or to English waters. The
earliest of these was a hen, killed near Worcester in 1838,
as communicated to this work by Strickland, and the specimen
labelled by him being still in his collection at Cambridge
there can he no doubt about its identification. Next comes
a fine red cock, from which the preceding figure was drawn,
exhibited at a meeting of the Zoological Society, Sept. 23rd,
1845, by Mr. E. B. Fitton who said he had found it .dead
and partly covered with wet sand in a crevice of some loose
rocks on the shore at Exmouth, on the 17th of the same
month, the wind being at the time south-west, and westerly
gales having prevailed for some days (Proc. Zool. Soc.^ 1845,
p. 91). The Author with Mr. Fitton examined this bird
while in the flesh. On dissection it proved to he an adult
male, and its stomach was empty. When some time after
that gentleman went to New Zealand he kindly sent it to the
Author and it is now in Mr. Knox’s collection. The third
example was bought alive in October 1872, by Mr. J. H.
Gurney, of a man at Great Yarmouth who said that it had
been caught on the rigging of a vessel which arrived at that
port in October 1870. It had become very tame, and so
continued after its transfer to Mr. Stevenson’s aviary at
Norwich, where it lived till December, 1874, having in the
mean time been more than once seen by the Editor. It was
a hen, and some particulars of its captivity have been published
by both the gentlemen named (Trans. Norf. and Norw.
Nat. Soc. 1872-73, p. 117; Zool. s.s. p. 4695). To these
notices is appropriate the statement made to Mr. R. Gray by
the late. Dr. Dewar, to the effect that some twelve or fifteen
years before, when on his passage from America, he observed
great numbers of this kind of Crossbill crossing the Atlantic
before a stiff westerly breeze. Many of the flocks alighted