copy ① Loxia leucoptera Lake Umbagog, Maine. 1 1889 Maine. Oct. 19 B. Umbag - These Crossbills have been fairly numerous since Sept. 1st. They always seem to be flying, however. These cha-cha-, inks, uiks is a sound that at once attracts the ear. It is uttered incessantly when a flock is on wing. This morning, at 7.30, I heard from a flock passing low over our camp a singularly beautiful breath of song evidently given by one bird alone. It was very like the song of Regulus Calendula and to my ear more sweet. The cha-cha cry is scarcely distinguishable from the flight note of Acanthis Linaria. These Crossbills are fully as restless as S. minor. They seem to have regular beats or routes which they travel every day. Thus the flock noted Oct. 19th regularly passed our camp every morning at about the same hour, they alighted somewhere behind it and after feeding ten minutes or more took wing again. Like the Red Crossbill they are absolutely silent when feeding. Just before starting to fly one or two birds begin to call others join in and finally with a general outcry the flock are off. Their flight is undulating and they fly in a loose scattered flock. As far as I observed this season they feed entirely on the seeds of the Spruces. I shot two on the 24th in a black spruce among cones and on the 26th saw a flock feeding on white spruce cones in a swamp. They rarely spent more than three or four minutes in one tree, usually alighting in a cluster among the cones at the top, then as if struck by a panic whirled off again. Occasionally they would alight in the top of a tall dead pine. I saw one hang head downward and then climb out under a dead branch using its bill like a Parrot.