DELAWARE VALLEY ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 27 



erg, Brown Creepers, Whitethroats and Song Sparrows made up 

 my bird-list for the day. I walked until after sunset and as I 

 came home through the twilight I heard the hoot of the Great 

 Horned Owl. " Hoo, hoo-hoo, hoo, hoo," it sounded with the 

 second note usually doubled. In my experience the Barred 

 Owl almost invariably doubles the third note and drops on the 

 last, while the Great Horned Owl doubles the second and keeps 

 the same cadence all the way through. I reached the cabin by 

 dark. Followed a wonderful exhibition of free-hand cooking 

 and a long dreamy evening with a book before a roaring fire. 

 Then I banked up the fire for the night, pulled my bed almost 

 into the curved fire-place and slept as only he can who has 

 been out in the open all day. 



The next morning dawned cold and rainy, about as unprom- 

 ising a day for locating birds as could well be found. I planned 

 to tramp to Lower Mill and then around to Upper Mill and back 

 through the woods, a circle of about ten miles. I found that in 

 my greediness the night before I had eaten everything in the larder 

 except a tin of corned-beef and six pickles, which I fell upon 

 like a wolf. Anyone who has placed himself outside of a can 

 of beef and six pickles is ready for great deeds and I started out 

 feeling that in spite of the weather it was to be an eventful day. 

 I saw no birds except a Brown Creeper until I reached the Lower 

 Mill. Near the dam were a number of White-throated Sparrows 

 and among them hopped a female chewink. Around a bend 

 in the road I plodded through the rain. As I passed the mill 

 suddenly from a small yellow locust tree by the roadside I heard 

 a series of lOud pips much like the note of the English Sparrow. 

 I looked up and there was my great adventure. 



The tree was fairly filled with a flock of large, plump birds. At 

 first I though they were Cedarbirds but the moment I caught 

 sight of their coloring I realized that I was in the presence of my 

 first flock of Evening Grosbeaks, a bird which I had never seen 

 before outside of a book. The birds sat motionless for some time 

 in the rain and I had an opportunity to count them three times 

 in succession and found that the flock consisted of seventy-four 

 which, so far as I can discover, is the largest accurately num- 

 bered flock recorded. Less than a third of them were males in 



