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 
