BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 



253 



rejected wings of which, floating down in showers, soon gave the surface of 

 the snow beneath the tree a light brownish tinge. The snow clinging to the twigs 

 and branches was also quickly dislodged by tlic movements of the active, heavy 

 birds and for the first few minutes it was incessantly flashing out in puffs like 

 steam from a dozen different points at once. The finer particles, sifting slowly 

 down, filled the still air and enveloped the entire tree in a veil-like mist of 

 incredible delicacy and beauty, tinted, where the sunbeams pierced it, with rose, 

 salmon, and orange, elsewhere of a soft dead white, — truly a fitting drapery for 

 this winter picture, — the hardy Grosbeaks at their morning meal. They worked 

 in silence when undisturbed and so very busily that at the end of the first hour 

 they had actually eaten or shaken off nearly half the entire crop of seeds. Some 

 men at work near by afterwards told me that this tree was wholly denuded of 

 fruit by three o'clock that afternoon when the birds descended to the ground 

 and attacked the fallen seeds, finishing them before sunset. 



"The next day (January 11) the city was fairly in possession of the Gros- 

 beaks. The sound of their piping was constantly in my ears whenever I stepped 

 out of doors, and I rarely looked out of the window for a moment without seeing 

 a flock sweeping past in long, undulating curves. Mr. Hoffmann writes under 

 this date : ' In the afternoon there was a flock of over si.xty-five birds in the 

 college yard, feeding in the snow under the ash trees. The birds on the plank 

 walks hardly moved to let the men pass, and one actually lit on my hat as I 

 stood beneath the large ash tree. Numbers were feeding outside the yard between 

 the car-tracks, and on the sidewalks. Many people were watching them.' 



"Fully a mile from the college, but very near the trees which the birds had 

 stripped on the previous day, stand two large ash trees in which, shortly after 

 eight o'clock, I found over two hundred Grosbeaks feeding. Both trees were 

 thickly hung with seeds at this hour, but the birds had thinned the clusters on 

 the upper branches and were fast working downward. At half-past three that 

 afternoon, when I visited the place again with Mr. Faxon, not a seed remained on 

 either tree. The snow beneath was completely covered with fallen seeds as with 

 a light brown carpet, and the Grosbeaks were all there eating them. By dividing 

 the flocks into halves and counting quickly, we got a very close approximation to 

 the total number which we made two hundred and twenty-five. There were per- 

 haps twenty-five to forty more scattered about on neighboring spruces and the 

 roofs of houses. 



" A part of the flock was distributed over the sidewalks for a distance of 

 several rods, feeding on the fallen seeds. As we advanced slowly the Grosbeaks 

 flew between or alighted on the wires of the low fence within arm's reach. One 

 even attempted to perch on my companion's shoulder, but he moved at the criti- 

 cal moment and it glanced to one side. Over the fence where most of the flock 



