EASTERN EVENING GROSBEAK 231 



sticks and catapults, in the streets of our city." This remarkable 

 tameness contributes greatly to their destruction. His report con- 

 cludes: "The birds freely entered the residential parts of the city 

 * * *. They were quite unsuspicious and tame, and were unmerci- 

 fully and wantonly killed with clubs, catapults, revolvers, pea-rifles, 

 and many were taken alive with a slip-noose attached to the end of 

 a long stick * * *." The birds continue to be attractive targets 

 for the irresponsible young. 



In Ontario and elsewhere, evening grosbeaks are sometimes high- 

 way casualties, owing to their previously mentioned fondness for 

 chlorided gravel with which many of the roads are sanded in winter. 



The domestic cat also takes its toll. M.J. Magee (1932) writes: 

 "With the number of birds around I found it practically impossible to 

 keep the cats away. One time I found a place in a thicket not 100 feet 

 away from my traps where a nice little 'house cat' had been devouring 

 its kills. Quite a lot of feathers were scattered around and nine bands 

 were found, two from Evening Grosbeak * * *" 



A Juvenal male evening grosbeak was found dead at the nest of a 

 sharp-shinned hawk in Algonquin Park, according to Clifford E. Hope 

 (in litt.). There is no doubt that Cooper's hawk is another enemy of 

 this species, H. R. Ivor told me (letter, Nov. 1949) that a small fiock 

 of grosbeaks came into a sugar maple by his house. After feeding 

 "they stayed in the maple until about noon when a Cooper's hawk 

 struck at them." As far as he knows the hawk was not successful, 

 but the grosbeaks disappeared. 



Shrikes, also, are enemies of this species. Mrs. Govan (1940) 

 writes: 



"The fifth day of the evening grosbeak invasion dawned as a smiling but raw 

 winter's day. With snow everywhere, my birds were awaiting me anxiously. 

 Apparently the grosbeak flock had reached its peak * * *. At seven in the 

 morning a shrike drove the terrorized flock before him in a madly dashing 

 wave * * *. Then, one day, while thirty grosbeaks were feeding on the porch, a 

 shrike cut across the yard. Shrieking their wild alarm, the grosbeaks hurtled 

 upward in a blind panic. My last sight of them that day showed them being fol- 

 lowed in close pursuit by the butcher bird." 



Occasionally grosbeaks have been killed by striking the windows 

 of houses. Often this has occurred at feeding stations when a bird has 

 been stampeded by a hawk or a shrike. 



To date there is but one report of the evening grosbeak parasitized 

 by the cowbird. Near Saranac Lake, New York, in mid-June, 1949, a 

 young grosbeak was reported at a feeding station. B. M. Shaub 

 (MS.) writes in part: "It was said to be very much grayer than the 

 previous ones. This young remained in the tree near the house and 

 was frequently fed by the male grosbeak. It was not until July 7 

 that I saw this bird and at once recognized it as a young cowbird 



