After all, there is something a bit uncanny about these cross-billed creatures, and their eccentricities show nowhere in greater relief than in their nesting habits. The quasi migrations of the bird are determined by the local abundance of fir (or pine) cones. Like their food supply, the birds themselves may abound in a given section one year and be conspicuously absent the next. Moreover, because there is no choice of season in gathering the seed crop, the birds may nest whenever the whim seizes them; and this they do from January to July, or even October. The communal life is maintained in spite of the occasional defection of love-lorn couples; and there is nothing in the appearance of a flock of Crossbills in April to suggest that other such are dutifully nesting. Mr. Bowles has never taken the eggs near Tacoma, altho he has encountered half a dozen of their nests in twelve years, the only occupied one of which we have record being found by a friend on the 25th of April, 1899. It contained three half-incubated eggs, and was placed in one of a group of small firs in the prairie country, at an elevation of some twenty feet. The nest rather closely resembles that of the California Purple Finch, but is more compactly built and much more heavily lined. It is composed of twigs and rootlets closely interwoven, and boasts an inner quilt of felted cow-hair nearly half an inch in thickness. The female Crossbill exhibits a singular devotion to duty, once confessed, and in this case the collector had actually to lift her from the eggs in order that he might examine them. No. 26. WHITE-WINGED CROSSBILL. A. O. U. No. 522. Loxia leucoptera Gmel. Description.—_Male_: Rosy-red or carmine all over, save for grayish of nape and black of scapulars, wings, and tail. The black of scapulars sometimes meets on lower back. Two conspicuous white wing-bars are formed by the tips of the middle and greater coverts. Bill slender and weaker than in preceding species. _Female and young_: Light olive-yellow, ochraceous, or even pale orange over gray, clearer on rump, duller on throat and belly; most of the feathers with dusky centers, finer on crown and throat, broader on back and breast; wings and tail as in male, but fuscous rather than black; feather-edgings olivaceous. Very variable. Length 6.00-6.50 (152.4-165.1); wing 3.50 (88.9); tail 2.25 (57.2); bill .67 (17). Recognition Marks.—Sparrow size; crossed bill; conspicuous white wing-bars of both sexes. Nesting.—_Nest_ has not yet been taken in Washington but bird undoubtedly breeds here. “_Nest_: of twigs and strips of birch-bark, covered exteriorly with moss (_Usnea_) and lined with soft moss and hair, on the fork of an evergreen, in deep forests. _Eggs_: 3(?), pale blue, spotted and streaked near larger end with reddish brown and lilac, .80 × .55 (20.3 × 1.4.)” (Chamberlain). _Season_: Feb.-March.