The Crossbill is about the size of the Common Bunting, and, like it and the Hawfinch, is a remarkably stout bird, having a strong bill, a large head, short thick neck, compact ovate body, short feet of considerable strength, rather long wings, and moderately large tail. Its plumage, in which green or red predominates, according to the age of the bird, is much more gaudy than that of our common birds, and approaches that of the Parrots, a tribe which it also resembles in some of its habits. Though only occasional visitors with us, Crossbills are plentiful in Germany, Bavaria, Sweden, and Norway all the year round, and are occasionally mischievous in orchards and gardens, on account of their partiality to the seeds of apples, which they reach by splitting the fruit with one or two blows of their stout bills. Food of this kind, however, they can only obtain in autumn; at other seasons, and, indeed, all the year round in districts remote from orchards, they feed principally on the seeds of various kinds of fir, which they extract from the cone by the joint action of their beak and tongue. The alder and other trees are also sometimes visited, and they have been noticed to resort to thistles and pick the seeds from them. 'In the autumn of 1821', says Macgillivray, 'when walking from Aberdeen to Elgin, by the way of Glenlivat, and along the Spey, I had the pleasure of observing, near the influx of a tributary of that river, a flock of several hundreds of Crossbills, busily engaged in shelling the seeds of the berries which hung in clusters on a clump of rowan (mountain ash) trees. So intent were they on satisfying their hunger that they seemed not to take the least heed of me; and as I had not a gun, I was content with gazing on them without offering them any molestation. They clung to the twigs in all sorts of positions, and went through the operation of feeding in a quiet and business-like manner, each attending to his own affairs without interfering with his neighbours. It was, indeed, a pleasant sight to see how the little creatures fluttered among the twigs, all in continued action, like so many bees on a cluster of flowers in sunshine after rain.' A writer in the _Zoologist_ thus describes the manoeuvres of a flock which he observed in 1849, in the county of Durham: "On the fifteenth of July when taking a drive in the western part of the county, where there are many thousand acres of fir-plantations, I had the good fortune to see a flock of birds cross my path, which appeared to be Crossbills; so, leaving the gig, I followed some distance into a fir-plantation, where, to my great gratification, I found perhaps thirty or more feeding on some Scotch firs. The day being fine, and as they were the first I had seen in a state of wild nature, I watched them for about twenty minutes. Their actions are very graceful while feeding, hanging in every imaginable attitude, peering into the cones, which, if they contain seeds, are instantly severed from the branch; clutched with one foot, they are instantly emptied of their contents, when down they come. So rapidly did they fall, that I could compare it to nothing better than being beneath an oak-tree in autumn, when the acorns are falling in showers about one's head, but that the cones were rather heavier. No sooner are they on the wing than they, one and all, commence a fretful, unhappy, chirl, not unlike the Redpoll's, but louder.' Another writer, in the _Magazine of Natural History_, thus records his experience: 'From October, 1821, to the middle of May, 1822, Crossbills were very numerous in this county (Suffolk), and, I believe, extended their flight into many parts of England. Large flocks frequented some fir-plantations in this vicinity, from the beginning of November to the following April. I had almost daily opportunities of watching their movements; and so remarkably tame were they, that, when feeding on fir-trees not more than fifteen or twenty feet high, I have often stood in the midst of the flock, unnoticed and unsuspected. I have seen them hundreds of times, when on the larch, cut the cone from the branch with their beak, and, holding it firmly In both claws, as a hawk would a bird, extract the seeds with the most surprising dexterity and quickness. I do not mean to assert this to be their general habit; but it was very frequently done when feeding on the larch. I have never seen them adopt the like method with cones of the Scotch or other species of pine, which would be too bulky for them to manage.