common shape could possibly do. Curious observers have even remarked that when the upper bill crosses the lower to the right, the bird will attract the diseases of men, whereas if the upper bill crosses the lower to the left, it will attract the diseases of women. But I cannot vouch for the accuracy of this particular observation. However that may be, certain it is that no fire will break out in a house where a crossbill is kept in a cage, neither will lightning strike the dwelling; and this immunity can only be ascribed to the protective colouring of the bird, the red hue of its plumage serving to ward off the red lightning and to nip a red conflagration in the bud. However, the poor bird seldom lives to old age; nor could this reasonably be expected of a creature which has to endure so much vicarious suffering. It generally falls a victim to one or other of the maladies of which it has relieved our ailing humanity. The causes which have given the crossbill its remarkable colour and the peculiar shape of its bill have escaped many naturalists, but they are familiar to children in Germany. The truth is that when Jesus Christ hung on the cross a flight of crossbills fluttered round him and tugged with their bills at the nails in his hands and feet to draw them out, till their feathers, which were grey before, were all bedabbled with blood, and their beaks, which had been straight, were twisted awry. So red have been their feathers and twisted their beaks from that day to this.​[282] Another cure prescribed in Germany for St. Anthony’s fire is to rub the patient with ashes from a house that has been burned down;​[283] for it is easy to see that as the fire died out in that house, so St. Anthony’s fire will die out in that man. [Sidenote: The shrew-mouse and the shrew-ash. Homoeopathic prescriptions to make the hair grow.]