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THE CANADIAN FIELD-NATURALIST 



VOL. XXXV. 



GARDENVALE, QUE., MARCH, 1921 



No. 3. 



THE EVENING GK08BEAK IN CANADA. 



By p. a. Taverner. 



Published by permission of the Director of the Victoria Memorial Museum, 



Ottawa, Canada. 



Perhaps to no American bird is there 

 greater interest attached, aesthetic or scien- 

 tific, than to the Evening Grosbeak, Hes- 

 periphona vespertina. Appearing as it 

 dees in the dreariest season of the year, 

 wlien birds are few and color absent from 

 tlie landscape, its wonderful yellow color 

 and plaintive whistle always attract, atten- 

 tion and interest. Even those who rarely 

 ])erceive unusual bird visitors note the ap- 

 pearance of the Evening Grosbeak, and the 

 winters of its occurrence always call forth 

 letters in the papers and floods of enquiry 

 of the local ornithologist. Over and above 

 its showy beauty in an empty landscape the 

 very mystery that surrounds the bird 

 })iques our curiosity. For it comes only 

 at irregular and unexpected intervals, and, 

 after tarrying awhile, disappears into the 

 unknown ; nor with all our present know- 

 ledge of the movements of birds can we yet 

 say authoritatively whence it comes or 

 whither it goes. It is some late evidence 

 on this point that has suggested the ap- 

 propriateness of a partial review of our 

 knowledge of the species at this time. 



The species was first introduced to scien- 

 ce and popular attention by W. Cooper, 

 who, in 1825, in the Annals of the Lyceum 

 of Natural History of New York, described 

 a specimen obtained by H. R. Schoolcraft 

 at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, on April 7, 

 1823. Schoolcraft was told that it was 

 common at Fond du Lac and about the 

 head of Lake Superior. Further informa- 

 tion was obtained from Major Delafield, 

 who noted the bird in August of the same 

 year on the Savanna River, north-west from 

 Lake Superior, where it visited his camp, 

 singing only in the evenings. Impressed 



by its mournful notes, Major Delafield in- 

 ferred that it dwelt "in dark retreats and 

 left them only at the approach of night." 

 It was from this circumstance that the bird 

 received its name vespertina. 



For many years occurrences of the bird 

 M'ithin tlie view of students were few and 

 far between ; they but whetted the scien- 

 tific appetite for information without sa- 

 tisfying it. The earliest record of the spe- 

 cies in south and south-western Ontario 

 appears to liave been the winter of 1854- 

 55, ^ when birds were taken at Toronto, 

 Hamilton and Woodstock. In 1866 Tho- 

 mas Mcllwraith - records hearing of them 

 at Hamilton, though he himself did not 

 actually see them. In 1879, in the Bulle- 

 tin of the Nuttall Ornithological Club, 

 Coues compiled a history of the species, 

 but, as far as the east was concerned, he 

 recorded little more than that it was a rare 

 and erratic winter visitor south to the 

 northern states, though commoner and 

 more widely-diffused in the mountains of 

 the west. Its first general appearance in 

 large numbers in eastern Canada occurred 

 in the winter of 1889 and 1890; this was 

 made the subject of a full report in the 

 Transactions of the (-anadian Institute for 

 1891. The Auk and the Ottawa Field- 

 Naturalist contain numerous notices of the 

 species about this date that add to the 

 records of its occurrence, though they fur- 

 nish no new information. Meanwhile the 

 Western Evening Grosbeak, Hesperiphona 

 vespertina montana, had been described 

 from New Mexico in 1879. It was diseover- 



1 Fleming. Auk. xxiv. 19<''7- P; ''^ 1S.7 pp 



2 Pro. and Comm. Essex Inst., V, i806i.<, Pp. 



79-96. 



