Redpoll Linnets 



13 



of the table. There were twenty-seven Linnets and a number of Tree Sparrows 

 feeding at one time. It was a fascinating sight. 



Later in the day I took my seat by the window, after having spread millet 

 on the table and in the box. In a few moments the Linnets appeared and soon 

 there were three eating from my hand while the table six inches from me was 

 swarming with them; twenty-seven at least being there at one time. While one 

 was eating in my hand I slowly raised my thumb to encircle him and when 

 it was so high that he could not bite the one who was trying to seize a seed occa- 

 sionally from the other side of my hand he hopped up on my thumb and down 

 the other side to nip the poacher, then back again to his first position. This 

 was done repeatedly but, finding he was losing time that way he took up a posi- 

 tion midway, one foot on my palm and the other stretched up on my thumb 

 so that he could eat on one side and bite the intruder on the other, without the 

 wear and tear of jumping over and back. 



Three of these birds had rosy breasts, the color seeming to deepen as the 

 warmer weather came on until two of them had breasts as crimson as their 

 crowns, and these were the only ones, with one exception, that had rosy rumps. 



They stayed with us several weeks, the flock diminishing as the snow disap- 

 peared and the weather grew warmer and on March 25, four of them, three 

 with rose-tinted breasts, made their parting call. We fully expect to see them 

 again during the coming winter, for their wings are long and strong and what 

 do a few hundred miles longer flight signify to them when there is a certainty 

 of abundance of food at the end of the journey? 



YOUNG KINGFISHERS 

 Photographed by James H. Miller, Lowville, N. Y. 



