Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume V.djvu/518

514 CROSS CROSSBILL Eleanor, rested during its removal from Gran- tham to Westminster. Of the few of these that remain, the Gothic cross at Waltham, which has been restored and carefully pre- Waltham Cross, restored. served, is the most famous. The principal tem- ples of India, those at Benares and Muttra, are cruciform, and some of the druidical monu- ments take the same shape. The cross is used extensively as a charge in heraldry. Berry, in his " Encyclopaedia of Heraldry," enumer- ates 385 different varieties. CROSS, an E. county of Arkansas, intersected by the St. Francis river; area, about 625 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870, 3,915, of whom 1,289 were colored. It was formed in 1862 from portions of Crittenden, Poinsett, and St. Francis coun- ties. The surface is level, and portions are swampy, but the rest is generally fertile. The chief productions in 1870 were 77,408 bushels of Indian corn, 3,971 of oats, 2,235 of Irish and 6,461 of sweet potatoes, and 1,719 bales of cotton. There were 763 horses, 1,108 milch cows, 1,967 other cattle,, and 6,330 swine. Capital, Wittsburg. CROSSBILL, a bird belonging to the order passeres, tribe conirostres, family fringillidcB, and genus loxia (Linn.) or curvirostrata (Geoff.). The bill in this genus is moderate, broad at the base, with the culmen much curved, and the sides compressed to the very acute tip; the mandibles cross each other, having their late- ral margins bent inward ; the wings are mode- rate, the tail short and emarginated ; the tarsi short, robust, and feathered below the knee; toes short, hind one with its claw very long ; claws curved and sharp. These birds are found in the northern parts of both hemispheres, oc- curring in flocks in the forests of pines and r American Crossbill (Curvirostrata Americana). firs, the seeds of which they eat; by means of the powerful bill and its peculiar construc- tion, they pry asunder the scales of the cones ; they also do much mischief in orchards by tearing open apples and pears in order to get the pips. The European species is the L. cur- virostra (Linn.) The American crossbill is the C. Americana (Wils.). The length of the lat- ter is 7 inches, and extent of wings 10 inches; the bill is brown, lighter on the edges, darker at the tip; iris hazel; general color a dull light red, inclining to vermilion, darker on the White-winped Crossbill (Curvirostrata leucoptera). wings; quills and tail brownish black ; the ab- domen paler red, passing into whitish. The young males have tints of yellow and green, mixed with brown; in the female the upper