4 +- + 
Here is what seems to me a truly charm- 
ing bird story, sent to me by Mrs. B. C. 
v of Hyde -Park: “I have had the 
‘American’ as well as white- winged variety 
of crossbills close to my house and in my 
pine grove during the past four weeks, 
the latter In greater numbers. I am not 
satisfied with merely seeing a bird, but 
like, if possible, to have it in my hand to 
examine. I was very desirous to sea the 
crossed bill, and wished it might be possi- 
ble to get one of the birds. Three weeks 
ago there was a large flock of them* in my 
pine grove, and X went out and seemed to 
be surrounded by them, and they came so 
near to me I could almost pick them up. 
After walking about among them a short 
time and patiently trying, my efforts were 
at last rewarded by my becoming the de- 
lighted possessor of a beautiful 'red white- 
wings.’ I will not divulge the manner in 
which I secured it, as the idea was entirely 
original with myself, but it was not by 
means of a snare or net. I had prepared 
a cage in anticipation of my being- so for- 
tunate as to get one, and I had it brought 
to me from the house, and having trimmed 
it with pine branches and furnished it with 
cones, I marched triumphantly into the 
house with my prize. 
4 - H- -f- 
“Having supposed it would be very much 
frightened at being placed in confinement, 
X intended to keep it only long enough to 
examine it and satisfy my curiosity, but 
much to my surprise, it seemed very con- 
tented and happy and was much less easily 
startled by having people around it and 
by sudden noises than my pet canary, 
which I have had almost six years. It 
would eat canary seed , from my lips and 
fingers when first offered to it without 
coaxing, and would perch on my finger, 
which I put in the cage. I took it in my 
hand and examined it thoroughly, and it 
made no resistance. T,he longer I kept it 
the more astonished I was at its gentle- 
ness. It was. very interesting to see it get 
the seeds from the cones, as it would 
spread its mandibles to press the sections 
open, and with its red tongue would draw 
the seeds out by their wings. I found upon 
examination that many of the seeds were 
dry, and that it would not eat them, so I 
filled the clip in- the cage with canary seed, 
of which it ate a g-reat quantify, and was 
fully satisfied. 
+ + + 
"I was advised by my friends to keep it 
as it was so interesting, but as I had no 
intention of depriving a wild bird of its 
liberty, the advice was not heeded, al- 
though I had become so much attached to 
it that, I found it very hard to part with it. 
On the morning of the fourth day of its 
visit to., me, soon after eight o’clock, the 
usual time for its companions to appear, 
1 took the cage, with the door tied back, 
and placed it in a flower-bed near a wim 
dow, where I could watch it. I supposed 
the bird would leave the cage as soon as I 
put it out, but it did not seem in any 
hurry to go. In a very short time one of 
the olive-green birds (its own mate prob- 
ably) alighted on top of the cage, then 
went round to the door and put its head in 
and began eating the seeds, and finally if 
went into the cage, when, after remaining 
a short time, it flew out, followed by my 
dear pet, saying as it went, ‘weet, weet, 
weet, weet,’ as If bidding me good-by, and 
possibly thanking me for my love and hos- 
pitality. Sorry, indeed, was I to part with 
it, but glad for it that it had rejoined its 
companions. 
“In a pine tree close by my front door 
one or two pairs of 'red-breasted nuthatch- 
es’ have had their abode fqr some weeks 
and every morning before seven o’clock 
and many times during the day they come 
to get their m-eals from the pieces of fat 
which I have hung upon the tree for them 
I often see a ; ‘brown creeper’ on the same 
tree, but as it is naturally satisfied with 
the grubs which it finds underneath the 
bark, it does not partake of the other fare 
How much of the pleasure of life is lost 
to those who take no interest in the won- 
ders of the birds and flowers, and of na- 
ture in all its beautiful phases 1“ 
SATURDAY, MARCH 10 , 1900 
- 
dl, — ^ 
Vol. XIX' 
1902 
] 
General Notes. 
297 
The White-winged Crossbill ( Loxia leucoptera) does not seem to have 
been recorded from any part of Massachusetts in summer. In the 
wonderful spring of 1900, when, amid an unusually copious migration of 
birds from the south, the Lesser Red-poll Linnets lingered about the 
lower Hudson River till the last days of April, and White-winged Cross- 
bills at least till May 29, and almost certainly later, the stay of the latter 
birds in Berkshire, Mass., lapped over into June. On the 3d and 4th of 
that month I saw a flock of five or six in the town of Lanesboro, and 
there is little doubt that they might have been found still later on Mt. 
Grey lock ; especially as they seem to be rarely wholly absent at any 
season from the spruce woods of Mt. Monadnock, only 56 miles to the 
east-northeast. — Gerald H. Thayer, Monadnock , N. H. 
Auk, XIX, July, 1902, 
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