Surrey Crossbills An outstanding event of the year is the
arrival in England of that naturally gregarious bird, the crossbill, which has become a regular breeder with us within our generation, They have been recorded as numerous in Surrey, the county of which the editor of the Field is the special historian. Occasionally crossbills has been seen in Bedfordshire and in the neighbourhood of the Whipsnade Zoo, with its alarming little bird sanctuary. It is a fairly safe prophecy that the crossbill will increase here as a nesting species, for the reason that our woods of conifer are continually increasing in Suffolk and Norfolk where the crossbill is most at home ; and even in the New Forest. More than this : small plantations of larch and fir have been made by a great number of owners of private estates. Irruptions of crossbills from the Continent in the second half of the year have long occurred at intervals ; and such movements are as yet quite beyond the range of calculation or prognostics.
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