32 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



could hear them cracking some distance away. They would 

 take the pits well out of sight back into their beaks keeping 

 their bills half open in a comical manner as if they had a bone 

 in their throat. A second later there would be a cracking noise 

 and out would drop two nicely split segments of the cherry pits, 

 the stone having been swallowed. The male of this flock seemed 

 much shyer than the females, perhaps having already been 

 hunted for his plumage, and kept in the deep thickets. When 

 I came quite near, they flew into a tree, the male and two 

 females in one and another female in a separate tree. Suddenly 

 they all flew away without giving any call. When on the 

 ground they could easily be overlooked in the dense thickets. 



On March 31, in the afternoon I walked all through this swale 

 but found no sign of the Grosbeaks. On April 1, I found them 

 again in this swale of trees at eight-ten A, M. , this time much 

 farther from the road than before. Each time I located them 

 by their call of ' ' pip, pip. ' ' They seem to almost invariably 

 make this call when sitting together in trees. When feeding on 

 the ground, however, they are absolutely silent, having no twit- 

 tering or feeding notes. 



On April 1st after I had located them they moved farther 

 down the swale and I lost sight of them. Following down the 

 run I finally saw them all feeding silently in a tree on the seeds 

 of the poison ivy. They would sidle along the limbs of the 

 tree exactly like a parrot does along its perch. From my 

 personal observations they have fed on cherry-pits, locust- 

 beans, pitch-pine pods and embryo needles and the berries of 

 the poison ivy. A flock at Hammonton, New Jersey was also 

 reported as feeding on the seeds of the box-elder. 



On April 1st, after I had watched them feeding the birds perched 

 in a perpendicular line, one above the other, in a tree, giving an 

 unusual opportunity for comparing them. There were five. One 

 was a male in full plumage, the brightest male that I have seen. 

 My color-notes taken at the time describe his breast and back as a 

 dark brownish-gold brightening to a canary-yellow on the side 

 with a gold line over the eye. Four of the others were undoubt- 

 edly females, showing the curious mottled black-and-white wings 

 characteristic of the females whereas in the males the wings are 



