Grosbeak WESTERN BIRDS 



seven seconds; a Junco ate a like amount, while a Song 

 Sparrow ate 34 seeds in one minute and ten seconds. 

 Another of these birds ate 154 seeds in three minutes and 

 forty-five seconds, and all the others ate similar amounts. 

 Forbush estimates that thirty seeds a minute was below 

 the average for these birds, and at that rate for even a 

 single hour a day it would have eaten 1,800 seeds each 

 day, or 12,600 a week. As many days, when the ground 

 was covered with the snow, some of the birds spent 

 several hours at the window-shelf, it is evident that this 

 estimate of the good they may do by seed-eating is a 

 low one. 



Prof. Beal believes that the Tree Sparrows in the 

 State of Iowa eat eight hundred and seventy-five tons 

 of weed seed in a winter, which Forbush thinks is a low 

 estimate. Surely these Sparrows are worth protecting. 



Because of the great number of species of these birds, 

 and in many cases the great similarity, and too, because 

 Chapman, and others, have written so comprehensively 

 about the eastern birds, I shall only take up for con- 

 sideration the most common and distinctive ones of the 

 various genera. 



GENUS HESPERIPHONA: EVENING 

 GROSBEAK. 



Evening Grosbeak: Hesperiphona vespertina vesper- 



Una. 



FAMILY— FINCHES, SPARROWS, ETC. 



Among the largest and showiest members of this large 

 family are the Grosbeaks — so named because of their 

 great bills. Though all Sparrows, Finches, etc., have 

 heavy bills, that of the Grosbeak is enough larger than 

 any of the others to make it easy of identification, if one 



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