224 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



CEDAR W 



Birds and the Mountain Ash. 



The red berries of the mountain ash 

 are a favorite food with most of our 

 small tree feeding winter birds. When 

 someone reports a January robin or 

 waxwing or the more usual pine siskin, 

 goldfinch, crossbill or grosbeak look 

 to the mountain ash tree in your own 

 yard or your neighbor's. 



For several years flocks of twenty, 

 to fifty or more purple finches spent 

 each winter in our town. A dozen or 

 so scattered mountain ash trees, one 

 here and one there in some person's 

 front yard, supported them. Only oc- 

 casionally could some of the birds be 

 found varying their diet with sumach 

 berries or such shriveled apples as had 

 remained on the trees. They were 

 very tame, often feeding undisturbed 

 on a branch fifteen feet over the side- 

 walk on which persons were passing ; 

 and this notwithstanding they were 

 continually hunted by boys with sling- 

 shots who killed many of them each 

 winter. These flocks were often 

 joined by pine siskins and goldfinches. 



One winter there appeared in these 

 mountain ash trees a flock of strange 

 birds about the size of robins. No one 

 in town, not even the oldest inhabitant, 

 had ever before seen their like. A few 

 were shot and taken for identification 

 to the local taxidermist who was con- 

 sidered infallible in all such matters. 

 He declared the birds to be "Arctic 



AXWING. 



grosbeaks" ; then the newspaper came 

 out with a detailed account under that 

 head. I caught a beautiful male which 

 had been wounded in one wing, prob- 

 ably by a sling-shot. He soon became 

 quite tame. Apple seeds were his 

 special delight, and if actions speak 

 louder than words no small boy ever 

 said, "Save me the core" more plainly 

 than he. Somehow the wing, which 

 had seemed broken, healed of itself 

 after my efforts to bind it up had 

 failed. Early in the spring I let him 

 go ; for a while he perched on my hand, 

 then flew to an apple tree and soon to 

 the top of a tall maple where I finally 

 left him calling as if for his comrades 

 whom no doubt he found in the piney 

 forests of the north to which they had 

 gone before winter had broken up. It 

 was not until years later, when I had 

 learned a little about birds in general, 

 that I knew the correct name of those 

 winter visitors ; they were pine gros- 

 beaks. 



When, in winter, you see birds 

 which suggest robins, but with short, 

 thick bills, in a mountain ash tree, pine 

 grosbeaks will be a pretty sure guess. 

 If, on investigation, it prove wrong 

 then there must have been a decided 

 mistake indeed. The males of the 

 American and red-breasted crossbills 

 and purple finch are the only other red- 

 breasted birds at all likely at the time, 

 and the three are of sparrow-like size; 



