BIRDS OF MINNESOTA. 299 



iCANTHIS LINARIA (L.). (528.) 



REDPOLL. 



The Redpolls arrive in the principal portions of the State 

 about the middle of October, varying somewhat in different 

 seasons, and they come to stay, as their persistence through the 

 severest of our winters will attest through twenty- eight years 

 of my own observations. I have neither yet seen nor heard 

 from any considerable section where they were not most 

 usually represented, except at Lanesboro, where Dr. Hvoslef 

 says: "One winter I did not see a single one of these birds." 



Formerly they used to literally swarm about our numerous 

 flouring mills in Minneapolis during the severe winter weather, 

 but the more pugnacious English Sparrow has driven him back 

 to his older, wild haunts on the prairies, and in the open tim- 

 ber where the seeds of grasses and weeds are supplied in 

 abundance for his food. They are really a very pretty and 

 interesting species that contribute more than any other except 

 the snow buntings to cheer the long Minnesota winters with 

 their restless movements on the wing, and their soft twitter- 

 ings in their flights. Mr. Langille, in his beautiful descrip- 

 tions of them, says: "The graceful curves of their undulating 

 flight intersect each other at all angles, while here and there 

 one seemed to be describing unusually long, sweeping curves 

 amidst the dense, moving mass, as if throwing out a challenge 

 to its more modest companions. Cru-cru-cru cru, shru-shru- 

 shru-shru, coming in soft, lisping voices from hundreds of 

 throats." 



About the first of April the flocks begin to consolidate and 

 fly in wilder swoops, and leave us about the 20th of that 

 month, the latest record I have being by Mr. T. S. Roberts' 

 on the 1 8th, 1875. The somewhat conspicuous dark-crimson 

 on the top of the head, and black patch on the chin leave no 

 doubt of i ts identity to even a casual observer, and should there 

 be, the manner of flight alluded to already, and their soft, 

 chu-chu- chu note constantly repeated in fight will render it 

 certain, for only the notes of the Goldfinch resemble theirs, 

 and their plumage is too characteristic to confuse in that re- 

 spect. They breed in the northeastern portions of the State, 

 in the smaller spruces and other evergreens and the willows 

 along the streams, in nests constructed of dry grass, strips of 

 fibrous barks, roots, moss, fragments of wasps nests, hair, 

 twigs thistledown, feathers, etc., woven artistically into a 



