v 
Loxia minor. 
Lake Umbagog, Maine. 
1395. About the cellar where the Umbagog Hpuse formerly stood 
Aug. 30. were a dozen or more Red Crossbills which were accompanied by 
a pair of White^winged Crossbills and a single Pine Linnet. 
They clustered thickly together on a space of bare ground 
where they seemed to be scooping up the earth with their bills 
and swallowing it in large mouthfuls. Standing within a feiy 
yards of them and using my glass I became satisfied that it 
was actually the earth which they were eating. Probably salt 
had been strewn there. All the Crossbills, as I convinced 
myself by a close and systematic inspection of each member of 
the flock in turn, were old birds and the males were in full 
red plumage. When , as happened every few minutes-for they 
were very restless and unusually shy for Crodsbills,-the flock 
took alarm at some real or imaginary danger and flew up into 
the scorched and leafless paper birches which used to shade 
the Umbagog House, but which are now all nearly or quite dead. 
The Red Crossbills would begin singing and keer> it up with 
brief intermissions for several minutes, sometimes only one 
singing at a time but usually two or three mingling their 
voices ; in a medley like Goldfinches in early spring. This song 
was new to me. It began with three or four full, sweet notes 
very much like that of the Goldfinch and ended with an equal 
number of comparatively harsh yet by no means unpleasing notes 
