The fourth branch of this family is of crossbills. Of these we have two. They are smaller than grosbeaks, and, as their name shows, have the two points of the bill crossed. It looks as if they could not feed themselves. But a beak like this is just fitted to pick seeds out of cones. And crossbills live mostly on cone-seeds.

These queer beaks are used for another thing, too. They help the birds climb around on the trees. They are almost as good as a hand. You have seen a parrot use his beak in the same way.

The American, or Red, Crossbill is the more common of our two. He travels about all over the Northern States and California. But he's very particular about a place to nest, and is suited only in the northern parts, or in the mountains.

The red crossbill seems to be a whimsical fellow; one never knows where to find him. One year he will come with all his friends to a place, and the next year there will not be one there.

The male is dull red, more or less streaked all over with brown. His mate is olive green, mottled and mixed with blackish.

Crossbills go in flocks. They are usually seen among the evergreens, where they find their food. They are much attached to one another.

I had a chance one summer to get well acquainted with a flock of American crossbills. I found them very odd in their manners. They had the queerest songs and calls of any bird I know. These were not musical, but sounded like such things as the squeaking of a wagon wheel or the sawing of wood.

The birds were very fond of calling and singing, and they kept up a constant chattering, as they flew from spruce to spruce. They spent most of their time on these trees, eating the seeds of the cones.

The white-winged crossbill lives about as the red one does. But he has a really fine song. It is full of trills, something like a canary's song.

One of the odd things about these birds is their habit of nesting in winter. A Maine hunter was once shooting moose in the middle of January, when he came upon the nest of a crossbill, with the bird sitting. The weather was cold, of course, and there was deep snow on the ground. The nest was in the woods, and made of twigs, with long gray moss outside. It looked so like a bunch of moss that it was hard to see. Other nests have been found in winter also.

Mr. Nehrling says that if one of these birds is caught, the rest of the flock will not leave him. They stay around him, crying and showing their distress in every way, and if one is put alone into a cage, he will die.