IN THE FLAT-WOODS. 7 
eidedly finchlike, — so much so that some of 
the notes, taken by themselves, would have 
been ascribed without hesitation to the gold- 
finch or the pine finch, had I heard them in 
New England; and even as things were, I 
was more than once deceived for the moment. 
As for the birds themselves, they were evi- 
dently a cheerful and thrifty race, much 
more numerous than the red-cockaded wood- 
peckers, and much less easily overlooked 
than the pine-wood sparrows. I seldom 
entered the flat-woods anywhere without 
finding them. They seek their food largely 
about the leafy ends of the pine branches, 
resembling the Canadian nuthatches in this 
respect, so that it is only on rare occasions 
that one sees them creeping about the trunks 
or larger limbs. Unlike their two Northern 
relatives, they are eminently social, often 
traveling in small flocks, even in the breed- 
ing season, and keeping up an almost inces- 
sant chorus of shrill twitters as they flit 
hither and thither through the woods. The 
first one to come near me was full of inquisi- 
tiveness ; he flew back and forth past my head, 
exactly as chickadees do in a similar mood, 
and once seemed almost ready to alight on 
