EASTERN EVENING GROSBEAK 207 



Major Delafield's inference is the source of the species' vernacular 

 name — manifestly a misnomer. I do not doubt that the good major's 

 birds cried out at sunset "in a singular strain" because he and his 

 party disturbed them as they made camp. Ordinarily the species is 

 not crepuscular, and in fact it might better be called "morning gros- 

 beak," for it is most active early in the day. Yet its scientific name, 

 Hesperiphona vespertina, is romantic, beautiful, and imaginative. 

 As Edward H. Forbush (1929) points out: "Its generic name is derived 

 from the Greek, referring to the Hesperides, 'Daughters of Night,' who 

 dwelt on the western verge of the world where the sun goes down." 

 And it inspired Elliott Coues (1879) to write: "A BIRD of the most 

 distinguished appearance, indeed, is the Evening Grosbeak, whose very 

 name of the 'Vesper-voiced' suggests at once the far-away land of the 

 dipping sun, and the tuneful romance which the wild bird throws 

 around the fading light of day. Clothed in the most striking color-con- 

 trasts of black, white, and gold, he seems to represent the allegory of 

 diurnal transmutations; for his sable pinions close around the bright- 

 ness of his vesture, just as the night encompasses the golden hues of the 

 sunset; while the clear white space enfolded in these tints foretells the 

 dawn of the morrow." 



Before 1854, in addition to the localities mentioned in Cooper's 

 account, this grosbeak had been reported from Lake Athabaska (Bona- 

 parte, 1828), from Carlton House and the Saskatchewan plains, where 

 it was known as the "sugar-bird" (W. Swainson and J. Richardson, 

 1831). Forbush (1929) teUs of the eastward extension of range: 



The first recorded extension of its range east of the Great Lakes was at Toronto 

 in 1854. About the beginning of the last quarter of the nineteenth century there 

 seems to have been some increase of the species in winter in the northern tier of 

 mid-western states. The first verified occurrence of the species in Indiana, 

 according to Dr. A. W. Butler, was in November, 1878, although it was reported 

 there in 1876. In the winter of 1886-87 its numbers increased in Indiana, and it 

 was noted in Ontario and also in some numbers in western Kentucky in the spring 

 of 1887, and a few reached New York State. Up to the winter of 1889-90, how- 

 ever, it was almost unknown in the East, and even as far west as Ohio. In that 

 winter a great eastward migration occurred, which in January, 1890, penetrated 

 almost to the Atlantic coast of Massachusetts. 



By February 1890 the birds had reached Revere Beach, on the Atlantic 

 Coast of Massachusetts, and finally the migration reached as far east 

 as the city of Quebec, and east in Maine as far as Orono. 



Mr. Bent (MS.) writes of his first youthful encounter with "this 

 fine, large and handsome grosbeak" as follows: "It was on March 8, 

 1890, that I saw ray first evening grosbeak. I was leaving my father's 

 house to go to work in a cotton mill in Fall River, when I saw three 

 plump, handsome birds feeding on the buds of a sugar maple in the 

 front yard. I promptly forgot about the mill job, and soon had two 



