268 NOTES ON NEW ENGLAND BIEDS 



that they were crossbills, which was the case, — male 

 and female. The former was dusky-greenish (through 

 a glass), orange, and red, the orange, etc., on head, 

 breast, and rump, the vent white ; dark, large bill ; the 

 female more of a dusky slate-color, and yellow instead 

 of orange and red. They were very busily eating the 

 seeds of the hemlock, whose cones were strewn on the 

 ground, and they were very fearless, allowing me to ap- 

 proach quite near. 



When I returned this way I looked for them again, 

 and at the larger hemlocks heard a peculiar note, cheep, 

 cheep, cheep, cheep, in the rhythm of a fish hawk but 

 faster and rather loud, and looking up saw them fly to 

 the north side and alight on the top of a swamp white 

 oak, while I sat in my boat close under the south bank. 

 But immediately they recrossed and went to feeding on 

 the bank within a rod of me. They were very parrot- 

 like both in color (especially the male, greenish and 

 orange, etc.) and in their manner of feeding, — holding 

 the hemlock cones in one claw and rapidly extracting 

 the seeds with their bills, thus trying one cone after 

 another very fast. But they kept their bills a-going so 

 that, near as they were, I did not distinguish the cross. 

 I should have looked at them in profile. At last the two 

 hopped within six feet of me, and one within four feet, 

 and they were coming still nearer, as if partly from 

 curiosity, though nibbling the cones all the while, when 

 my chain fell down and rattled loudly, — for the wind 

 shook the boat, — and they flew off a rod. In Bechstein 1 



1 [J. M. Bechstein, M. D., Cage and Chamber-Birds, translated from 

 the German and edited by H. G. Adams, London, 1853, p. 174.] 



