LOXIA BIFASCIATA.

White-winged Crossbill.

Lowia bifasciata, Nilss. Skand. Faun. Illum., pl. 20.
Crucirostra bifasciata, Brehm, Handb. N

aturg. Vég. Deutsch., p. 244,
temoptera, Glog. Isis, 1828.

———————

Ir we were as well acquainted with the habits and e

with those of the Lowia pityopsittacus and L, curvirostra, we should probably find that it gives pre

some particular group of trees, most likely to one or other species of Abies.
is a native of Central Europe, Russia, and S

and De Sélys-Longchamps h
am compelled reluctantly

conomy of this pretty species of Crossbill as we are
ference to
The Common Larch (A. lariv)
iberia, in all of which countries the bird is also found.
ave each contented themselves with

to add, that in the present paper I
history. It is, in fact, a species of which we know little

countries of Holland, Germany, Switzerland, and France, and as irregularly crosses the Channel to our own

island, and occasionally proceeds still further west to Ireland, where it was killed near Belfast in 1802. In

England, one was shot out of a small flock near Ipswich; Mr. Doubleday is said to have
his own garden, at Epping ; it has also been taken in Cornwall, W

Norfolk, the Isle of Wight, Cumberland, and in Scot]
winged Crossbill is the scattered pine- and |

Temminck
a mere description of the species ; and I
am unable to give any details as to the bird’s
more than that it visits, at irregular intervals, the

procured one in
arwickshire, Derbyshire, Surrey, Suffolk,
and. In all probability, the proper home of the White-
arch-forests of Eastern Russia and Siberia, and thence
sionally makes a western movement to Germany, Holland,

Thibet and the great Himalaya range of mountains,

it occa-
and this country, and a southern one to
whence I have received one, if not two specimens. It is
doubtless the species described by Schrenck, in his ‘ Birds of the Amoor,’ under the name of ZL. leucoptera.
Both Continental and British ornithologists considered the present bird to be identical with the American
L. leucoptera until the Baron de Sélys-Longchamps, with his wonted acumen, pointed out, in his * Faune Belge,’
the peculiar features which distinguish it from that species ; these may be thus stated :—the American bird
is smaller than a Sparrow, has the beak small, very much compressed, and the points slender and elongated,
the tail greatly forked; the males clothed in brilliant crimson, and the tail black with little
the European White-winged Crossbill, on the other hand, is larger than a Sparrow,

large as that of the Common Crossbill, less compressed than in the American bir

or no bordering :
has the beak almost as
d, the points less crossed
and not so elongated, the tail less forked ; the males clothed in dull brick-red, and the tail-feathers bordered
with yellow. Mr. Yarrell has also pointed out that the claw of the hind toe of the American bird is both
longer and stouter than that of the European species.

Nearly all that has at present been recorded respecting the Lowia bifasciata is comprised in the following
passages in Professor Nilsson’s ‘ Scandinavian Fauna’ and Schrenck’s ‘ Birds of the Amoor.’ Nilsson records
nearly a dozen instances of its occurrence in Sweden, sometimes in considerable numbers, so that from
twelve to twenty have been killed out of the same flock, which occasionally comprises among its members
examples of the Parrot and the common species.

Brandt and Middendorff state that “it is a constant inhabitant of Northern Siberia, that it is one of the
commonest birds on the Jenissei, and that it proceeds further north than any other species. North of the
Amoor, Middendorff found it on the Stanowoi Mountains in October; young birds at Udskoi-Ostrog in June,
and among the larch- and fir-woods of the Lower Amoor about the middle of February.” ;

‘The only example of the White-winged Crossbill in Norfolk, that Iam at present aware of, says Mr.
Stevenson, ‘is the one referred to in the following note, by Mr. C. B. Hunter, to the ‘ Zoologist’ in 1846 :—
‘ Four or five of these birds were observed on some fir trees near Thetford, in Norfolk, on the 10th of May
last (1846), one of which was shot, and came into the possession of Mr. none Reynolds, bird-fancier, o
Thetford. About a week before this, Mr. Reynolds purchased a specimen of a bird-stuffer at Bury St.
Edmunds, which had but just been set up, and was obtained : that neighbourhood, Mr. a ee
in the Supplement to his third edition, that five specimens of W ita Crossbill, oe dV Hee f
(all killed in England), belonged undoubtedly to the European species ; and of these, on a 7 t ee
of Mr. Doubleday, was killed at Thetford, and this I believe to be the bird above referrec to y I z ; un a
The Suffolk one from Bury, mentioned by the same gentleman, is now in the collection of Mr. J. H. Gurney,
and has all the Eire cteristics of the European type. Another White-winged Crossbill is aby pepe: to
have been shot in Suffolk, some years since, from a flock of five or six, by Mr. Seaman, of Ipswic ‘ |
Those seen in Cumberland were in a small flock of six or seven in number, of which several Wek Te |
The male has the whole of the bead, upper, and under surface mottled grey and bright brick-red, the