GYPSY BIRDS. 



THERE are many land birds whose whole lives are 

 passed almost in the same spot, and others that 

 make great journeys twice a year ; both kinds, how- 

 ever, the stay-at-homes as well as the travelers, are 

 regular in their habits. 



You can tell where to find them or when to expect 

 them, sometimes almost to a day. Orioles, for instance, 

 reach Massachusetts, almost every year, in the first 

 week of May and leave in the last week of August. 



Regular habits like these do not suit gypsies nor 

 the Gypsy Birds; they wander from place to place 

 wherever they find the food they like. Sometimes 

 they appear in the fall in great numbers, and stay 

 through the winter and late into the spring. The 

 next year and the next they are absent ; perhaps ten 

 years elapse before they revisit the place. 



The best known of the gypsy birds are the Cross- 

 bills, whose strange pair of scissors you find among 

 the bird bills illustrated on page 197. The handsom- 

 est gypsies in Bird World are the Pine Grosbeaks ; 

 the most lovable ones are the Linnets. All these live 

 in the far north, where snow lies on the ground for 

 the greater part of the year, in the great pine and 



