“What can such a rickety beak be good for,” Emile asked, “with its tips pointing one up and the other down? It will never be able to pick up a seed from the ground.” “Consequently, it does not get its food from the ground. Its manner of proceeding is more complicated. “First I will say that the bird is known as a crossbill, from the position of the two mandibles. This odd arrangement is not the result of an accident to the bird, as for instance a sprain following some violent effort; it is not a crippled beak, nor is it a rickety beak, as Emile calls it, but a beak in its natural and perfect state. The bird is born with this odd beak and has never had any other. It is even extremely doubtful whether it would consent to make a change if it had the opportunity, so useful a tool is this beak for the work it has to do. The crossbill has a fondness for pine seeds above all other food. Take a pine-cone and lift the scales with the point of a penknife. You will find behind each scale two seeds full of oil and smelling slightly of resin. They are the titbits the bird is after. But how get at them under scales so hard and so firmly held in place? In vain would the grosbeak hammer at these scales with its strong tool; it would never succeed in opening them. Even we ourselves with the aid of a knife find it difficult. But the crossbill makes play of this hard work. It inserts the tip of one mandible under the scale and, using the other as a fulcrum, pries with a turning movement until the scale is lifted and the seed laid bare; and the whole thing is done in next to no time. A key turning in the lock does not push the bolt more easily.” “I must change my mind,” Jules acknowledged, “about this beak that at first seemed to me so awkward; it is a first-rate key to force the lock of a pine-cone.” “And it is not less useful,” proceeded his uncle, “in quartering apples and getting out the pips. I should not like to have crossbills by the dozen in any orchard of mine; they would soon tear all the fruit to pieces. Fortunately, it is not our level plains that these birds choose as their haunts, but cold, mountainous regions covered with dark forests of cone-bearing evergreens. Their plumage is bright red more or less tinged with green and yellow. Crossbills breed in the coldest countries of Europe and build their nests even in midwinter. Their materials are moss and lichens, made to shed the melting snow by a coating of resin.