BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 263 



" Dear Mr. Deane : — My father, Profes.sor Benjamin Peirce, lived from 1844 to 1872 in 

 one of a line of three houses belonging to the College and in tlie College Yard. The only 

 house of the three now standing /« situ is that which is at present occupied by Professor 

 Shaler. My father's was the one next to that, standing on a line with it and in front of where 

 Sever Hall now is. Two'ash trees in front of tlie nortliern wing of Sever were just outside 

 my father's study windows. A group of oaks (now reduced, I think, to two) were at the par- 

 lor end of the house, on the .south. The house was, after 1872, tenanted by Professor Lane 

 for a while, and was later removed to Frisbie Place, where it is occupied by Professor Arnes. 

 There were many beautiful shrubs and trees on the gi'ounds, set out by my father with his own 

 hands. A few of them still remain, including the fine purple beech which was greatiy injured 

 by fire last year, just after the Shakespere performance under the trees. 



" My brotlier Herbert, with whom I am staying here [Washington, D. C] and who was a 

 litde boy in 1859, tells me that he remembers that a nest of some rare bird was found in the 

 grounds about tlie house at some date of his boyhood. He thinks it was found in one of the 

 pines or other cone-bearing trees, of which there were tlien many in the grounds. But he 

 does not remember the bird being spoken of by the name which you give it. Probably he 

 heard some other name for the same bird. 



Yours truly, 



J. M. Peirce." 



In 1883 a nest of the Pine Siskin was found in Newton, Massachusetts, by 

 Mr. Dean W. Park, who writes me that it was placed about fifteen feet above 

 the ground near the extremity of one of the lower branches of a small pine grow- 

 ing on the top of ' Mount Ida,' a large, rounded hill not far from the railroad 

 station. Although this locality is not included in the Cambridge Region pro- 

 per, it lies less than a mile from its southern borders at Watertown. The 

 nest contained only two eggs. Mr. Park waited several days before disturbing 

 them, hoping that more might be laid. He finally took them, with the nest and 

 the female Siskin, on May 29. He tells me that the eggs were blown, and the 

 skin of the bird prepared, by Mr. H. A. Purdie, and that all the specimens were 

 afterwards deposited in the collection of the Newton Natural History Society. 



In the Cambridge Region the Pine Linnet is almost invariably met with in 

 flocks. Like the Redpolls and the Goldfinch, with which it sometimes associates, 

 it is a nervous, restless bird, subject to frequent and often apparently causeless 

 panics, and given to spending much of its time on wing roaming from place to 

 place in search of food. It is most likely to be found in weedy fields or among 

 alders and birches on the borders of woodland. As its name implies, it also fre- 

 quents evergreen trees, especially pitch pines and Virginia junipers. In spring it 

 often visits our garden or the immediate neighborhood to feed on the seeds and 

 buds of the Norway spruce. About the middle of October, 1870, Mr. H. W. 

 Henshaw and I found two or three hundred Pine Finches congregated in the 

 large willows which shade the causeway at Rock Meadow. They were feasting 

 on small bark lice, as we ascertained by shooting and dissecting a number of 

 specimens. 



