BRIGHT PEA THERS. 
to 
to 
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but without interfering with each other. They frequently utter a single 
rather mellow c/’z&, and are seen occupied in this manner until near sunset, 
when they again fly off to the interior of the forest. I one night sur- 
prised a party of them roosting in a small holly tree, as I happened to 
be brushing by it. In their consternation they suddenly started all to- 
gether, and in the same direction, when, not knowing what birds they 
were, I shot at them and brought down two. 
“It is remarkable that, at this season, males in full beauty of plum- 
age are as numerous as during the summer months in far more northern 
parts, where they breed ; and you may see different gradations of plum- 
age, from the dingy greenish-brown of the female and young to the 
richest tints of the oldest and handsomest male ; while along with these 
there are others, which by my habit of examining birds, I knew to be 
old, and which are of a yellowish-green, neither the color of the young 
males, nor that of the females, but a mixture of all. 
“ The song of the Purple Finch is sweet and continued, and I have 
enjoyed it much during the spring and summer months, in the moun- 
tainous parts of Pennsylvania, where it occasionally breeds, particularly 
about the Great Pine Forest, where, although I did not find any nests, 
I saw pairs of these birds flying about and feeding their young which 
could not have been many days out, and were not fully fledged. The 
food which they carried to their young consisted of insects, small berries 
and the juicy part of the cones of the spruce pine. 
“They frequently associate with the Common Cross-bills, feeding 
on the same trees, and like them are at times fond of alighting against 
the mud used for closing the log-houses. They are seldom seen upon the 
ground, although their motions there are by no means embarrassed. 
They are considered as destructive birds by some farmers, who accuse 
