They are excellent cage pets, becoming very tame when well treated. As they are 

 just as happy in the cage as among the trees and bushes, and take food at once after 

 having been captured, they do not seem to feel the loss of their freedom. In the cage 

 they should be fed with millet, Canary and rape seed, and in summer with crated 

 carrot, mixed with Mockingbird-food, lettuce and fruit should be added. They suffer, 

 however, much from the heat of the summer. 



On the Red-poll's habits in its summer home Mr. E. W. Nelson* gives the follow- 

 ing account: 



"This and the closely-allied species {AcanthJs hornetnanni exilipes) commenced to 

 nest in the vicinity of Saint Michaels, even as early as May 22, and in 1878, before the 

 ground w^as free from snow, and while the sea and small streams were still covered with 

 ice, we found a nest of this bird cunningly placed in a cavity in a stout branch project- 

 ing from a log of drift-wood, which a high tide, many years before had stranded on 

 the bare tundra several miles from the sea. In the bottom of the shallow^ cavity, to 

 which the bird gained access by a small knot-hole, was placed a compact structure of 

 fine straw^ and grass, lined with Ptarmagin feathers and containing three eggs. The 

 log was from twenty to twenty -five feet in length, and w^hile a native sat at the farther 

 end the female entered the nest, the male keeping close by and continually uttering his 

 cheerful notes, as if to assure his partner of his presence. 



"A pair of these birds built their nest early the same season within the shelter 

 afforded by my inverted kyak, as it lay upon the staging close by the house, and nests 

 were found all about in bushes, or tufts of grass, indifferently, according to the locality. 

 The material used by them is as varied as the sites chosen, and appears to consist of < 

 such material as comes first to hand. One, for instance, is composed entirely of an 

 irregular mass of fine dry twigs with a very few Ptarmigan feathers for lining; an 

 other, is a fine, compadl, cup-shaped structure of dry, coarse grass, warmly lined with 

 a finer material of the same, united with feathers and the cotton obtained from willows 

 and other plants. 



"It has been recorded from the Aleutian Islands, at Unalashka in Ellis' voyage, 

 and this is the only record from those islands. To the north I found it and the Hoary 

 Red-poll on both shores of Behring Sea to the Arctic. On the Alaskan coast the two 

 were common about Kotzebue Sound, the Hoary Red-poll, however, being the pre- 

 dominating species. In the vicinity of East Cape and adjoining portions of the Sibirian 

 coast the two forms occur, the Hoary being in the majority thei"e, as it is on our shore. 



"The first nests are built early in spring, as noted, and from the middle of May 

 until the last of June and first of July they are seen but rarely in the vicinity of the 

 houses. After about the first of July, however, they come trooping about, young and 

 old, in large parties, with great confidence aiid a peculiar pertness, taking possession 

 of the premises and using the roofs and fences for convenient perches, making excursions 

 thence to whatever point appears likely to yield food, or chasing each other playfully 

 about. In spring they are beautiful objects, with their bright rosy hues and fluffy plumage. 

 On warm sunshiny days during April they come familiarly up to the very windows and 



* "Report Upon Natural History Collections made in Alaska between the Years 1877 and 1881." By Edw. W. Nelson. 

 Ng. Ill, Washington: Government Printing Office. 1887, 



