SAND DUNES AND SALT MAESHES 



spends the winter so far north, and one has 

 an opportunity to watch it changing by the 

 spring molt to the brilliant summer dress. 

 The process begins as early as the last of 

 March, and the birds sing before the molt is 

 finished. As early as April 7th, I have heard 

 a myrtle warbler, who was in extensive molt 

 and very shabby, sing a feeble warbling song. 

 Such northern birds as the two species of 

 crossbills, the pine grosbeak, the redpolls and 

 the pine finch, that come here only when the 

 food supply fails them in the north, or per- 

 haps when the wanderlust strikes them, are at 

 times familiar birds in the dune groves. They 

 are always interesting, and much could be said 

 of their charming ways. All are but little 

 afraid of man, for they have come from north- 

 ern wildernesses where he does not disturb 

 them. I believe it was Buffon who said that 

 the crossbills were deformed by the severe cli- 

 mate in which they lived, but if one has 

 watched them extracting the seeds from a 

 pine cone, he realizes what a perfect instru- 

 ment for that purpose their '^ deformed " bill 

 is. They often hang from the branches and 

 the cones by bill and feet like parrots, and 

 their red and green and yellow plumage en- 



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