A RUNAWAY DAY 69 



found what afterwards proved to be the largest flock 

 ever reported of this rare bird of the far north so 

 far south. For a delightful hour I followed them. 

 They were restless, but not shy. Sometimes they 

 alighted on the ground and then flew up all together, 

 like a flock of starlings. They looked like overgrown 

 goldfinches, just as the pine grosbeak looks like an 

 overgrown purple finch, and the blue grosbeak of 

 the south for all the world like a monstrous indigo 

 bunting. As I followed them, suddenly I heard a 

 sharp chip, and to my delight there flashed into sight 

 the crested cardinal grosbeak, blood-red against the 

 snow. For a moment the lithe, nervous, flaming bird 

 of the south met its squat, strong, stolid cousin of 

 the far north. 



I could come quite near without alarming them, 

 and then suddenly they would all fly away together 

 to some other tree without any apparent reason. 

 Besides the sparrow-like note that I first heard, they 

 had a sort of trilling chirp. Once they all started like 

 a flock of goldfinches or grackles in a chirping chorus. 

 When they flew, they sometimes gave a single, clear 

 flight-note, but never made a sound when feeding on 

 the ground. The birds had short, slightly forked tails, 

 and the yellow ring around the eye gave them, when 

 seen in profile, a curious spectacled appearance; 

 while the huge beak and short tail made them seem 

 clumsy as compared with the other grosbeaks. The 

 plumage of the females showed mottled black-and- 

 white wings and greenish-yellow backs and breasts. 

 The iris of the eye in both sexes was red, the legs of a 



