Notes on Winter Birds 



53 



nervous and rapid change of positions, 

 one would believe them to have a 

 quantity of Warbler blood in their veins, 

 although, of course, they were not the 

 least bit timid, for Miss Robbins had 

 fed them within two or three feet from 

 her hand. 



These birds differ from our native 

 Chickadee, in that they possess no black 

 cap, and the Acadian's under-parts are as 

 red as those of the Red-breasted Nuthatch 

 and very nearly the same color. The black 

 cap is superseded by one of a buffy brown, 

 which color seems to follow its nape and 

 back almost to the rump in a somewhat 

 graduated manner. 



The call has a similarity to that of our 

 native Chickadee, but is uttered much 

 more briskly and is more wheezy. Often 

 it will contain two higher notes followed 

 by one low, (chick-a-dee), and again it can 

 be heard with two higher notes and two 

 low, (chick-a-dee-dee), but always more 

 husky and brief than our native favorite. 

 — Arthur G. Powers, Hartford, Conn. 



Pine Grosbeak at Sharon, Conn. 



You may be pleased to note in next 

 issue of Bird-Lore the phenomenallj^ 

 early arrival in this latitude of the Pine 

 Grosbeak. My daughter saw a flock of 

 fifteen or twenty on November 17, 1913, 

 about a mile from my store and although 

 she knows the birds quite well I feared 

 she might be mistaken, as in the three or 

 four times I had s.'en them in Connecticut 

 in the past thirty years, it was never 

 earlier than the middle of December with 

 cold weather and plenty of snow, so this 

 noon I walked with her to the little grove 

 of pines, maples and shrubbery, and was 

 most agreeably surprised to count ten of 

 my old friends, the Pine Grosbeak. I 

 could approach within six feet when 

 they were in the bushes and within eight 

 feet when they were on the ground. As 

 usual, one was in the red plumage to about 

 eight or nine in the immature and famale 

 plumage of slaty gray and yellowish on 

 head and rump. — Geo. M. Marckres, 

 Sharon, Conn. 



HERRING GULL ON WESTERN ISLAND, LAKE CHAMPLAIN, X. Y. 

 Photographed by B. S. Bowdish 



