JOURNAI, OF MAINE ORNlTHOLOGlCAIv SOCIKTY. 27 



to identify them, and being near to them I had an excellent oppor- 

 tunity. They proved to be mostly White-winged Crossbills, with 

 about a dozen Purple Finches and a score of Tree Sparrows. 

 Although the song of the Crossbill somewhat resembles that of the 

 Goldfinch, I was sure I heard the genuine, and on carefully looking 

 over the whole flock I found two of the Astragalinus tristis. I had 

 just discovered these two when a flock of thirty of this same species lit 

 in a tree close by me, and these were soon followed by several small- 

 er flocks of ten or twelve, some Crossbills and others Purple Finches 

 and Goldfinches, until the number was soon augmented to over two 

 hundred, and such singing I have never heard equalled in the sum- 

 mer. The sun was out warm and bright, and nearly every bird wel- 

 comed it with song or call. After about an hour with this flock I 

 started to return, and had gone but a short distance when I ran into 

 a flock of Hudsonian Chickadees (ten or twelve), and these, too, 

 were exercising their voices, and mingled with the "dee, dee, dees" 

 and "Chick-a-dee dees" was a sweet little song of three or four 

 notes and new to me, but I was not long in doubt as to what it was, 

 for soon a Hudsonian came out on a limb not over three feet from 

 my face and sang it right at me. It was, as children term it, "just 

 too cute." All along my route were scattered Goldfinches and 

 White-winged Crossbills. About two hundred Crows were finding 

 something good in an open field, and one hundred and fifty Old 

 Squaws and numerous Herring Gulls were feeding along the shore." 



MiscEivLANEOUS NoTES. — The Northern Shrike or Butcher 

 Bird {Lanius borealis) has been much in evidence during the present 

 wnnter. He appears now to be a not uncommon visitor in many of 

 the city streets, where he finds an ample supply of food among the 

 large flocks of English Sparrows which inhabit such places in cold 

 weather. While accounts of its rapacious and cruel work among 

 our smaller birds are quite common, it remains for one of our keen 

 bird students, Miss Sara Chandler Eastman, of Portland, to note the 

 efforts of one of these hawk-like birds to get at a pet canary, which 

 was hanging in a cage inside a window in a suburb of that city. 

 The bird made several attempts, and its failure, on account of the 

 intervening glass, was something it apparently could not under- 

 stand . 



Prof. A. L,. I^ane, one of the society's ex-offlcers, reports the 

 appearance at Goodwill Farm of an unusually large flock of Snow- 

 flakes on November 19th last. He estimates the number in the 



