206 LIFE-HISTORIES OF BIRDS 



glabra, Lonicera periclymenum, in sheltered locali- 

 ties, and the seeds of Panicum. 



At all seasons except the breeding-season, it is 

 pre-eminently gregarious; its dontinuance in a 

 place being necessarily short. It is exceedingly 

 shy, and can be approached only with much diffi- 

 culty;- the sportsman when desiring a shot is 

 necessitated to take advantage of the cover of 

 bushes. 



Thickets of evergreens, particularly of the red 

 cedar, are noted resorting places, on account of 

 the requisite shelter and concealment which they 

 secure. When, changing its base of supplies, its 

 flight is always lofty. "The sight of birds being 

 keenly developed, a lofty flight enables them to 

 take into die range of vision broader scopes of 

 country; and thus secures excellent facilities for 

 food-detection. This a-priori assumption will, 

 doubtless, account for the aforementioned habit 

 ascribed to this species. 



We have never observed its presence oftener 

 than once in the same locality, during the cold 

 weather. Late in May, when our cultivated varie- 

 ties of Cerastes are in fruit, it returns in large 

 flocks, and becomes a nuisance to the farmer. Its 

 wanton destruction of cherries renders it exceed- 

 ingly odidiis. The farmer's ingenuity is taxed to 

 the utmost in devising means to check its devasta- 

 tion, since the species has litrie dread of the gun, and 

 still less of contrivances in the guise of scarecrows. 

 Its appetite for the juicy cherry is so perfectly 



