ROSE-BREASTED GROSBEAK 47 



I have heard both males and females give this note when blue jays 

 or grackles attempted to share the feeder. Some individuals, both 

 male and female, also utter a 'distress' call when held for bandmg — 

 a series of loud, piercing screeches similar, but greatly magnified, 

 to the sounds purple finches make under hke circumstances. I 

 have never heard this distress call given under natural conditions, 

 though conceivably attack by any predator should evoke it." 



Enemies. — Friedmann (1929) calls the rose-breasted grosbeak "a 

 fairly common victim" of the cowbkd and says: "Numerous pub- 

 lished records from all parts of this bird's range * * * have come to 

 my notice. I know of no instance where more than two Cowbirds' 

 eggs have been found in any one nest of this species," But Jim 

 Hodges (1946) reports a nest of this grosbeak containing "five well- 

 incubated eggs of the Cowbird but none of the grosbeak," And the 

 male grosbeak was incubating them. 



Hamerstrom (1951) mentions finding feathers of immature rose- 

 breasted grosbeaks beneath the plucking perch of a Cooper's hawk. 

 H. S. Peters (1936) hsts two flies as external parasites on the rose- 

 breasted grosbeak. A. W. Blain (1948) includes this species in a list 

 of birds injured or killed hitting "picture windows," D. A, Zimmer- 

 man (1954) mentions two birds found dead on highways. 



There seems to be no published record of one of these bu'ds living 

 for more than 11 years in a wild state, but Henry Nehrling (1896) 

 says: "I loiew of a Rose-breasted Grosbeak that was kept in perfect 

 health for over fifteen years. All the white of the plumage had be- 

 come in time a very beautiful rosy-red." This was a captive bird. 

 To which C. E. Smith adds: "M. M. Wernicke (1938) discusses a 

 15-year-old bird; A. C. Govan (1964) describes the death of a captive 

 male at the age of 17K years and J, H. Ross (1942) writes of a male 

 that was kept in captivity from the spring of 1928 to the fall of 1951, 

 when it died in its 24th year." 



Foil. — When the grosbeaks leave their summer homes on their fall 

 migration, they are not as brilliantly colored as in the spring and are 

 less conspicuous in their behavior. Taverner and Swales (1907) say 

 that, while passing from Canada to the United States at Point Pelee, 

 they "were very difficult to find, keeping well up in the tops of the 

 high trees and hiding in the leaves, and the only indication of their 

 presence was the sharp grosbeak click that occasionally came to us 

 from somewhere overhead." 



Frederick C, Lincoln (1939) writes: 



The route used by the Rose-breasted Grosbeak, which appears to belong chiefly 

 to the Mississippi Flyway, presents an interesting variation in convergence. 

 * * * The extreme width of the breeding range of this species, from the Maritime 

 Provinces of Canada to central Alberta, is about 2500 miles. Nevertheless the 



