232 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 23 7 taut i 



{Molothrus a. ater), at least a week out of the nest * * *. On July 11 

 the male grosbeak and the young cowbird were seen again, but at 

 this time the grosbeak's interest in the cowbird had greatly lessened 

 and he was reluctant to feed it and only did so after much begging 

 for food on the part of the cowbird." 



Florence Huestis Simpson gave me an evening grosbeak killed at a 

 window in Todmorden, Ontario, in March 1958. On it were several 

 bird lice (Mallophaga) Vv^hich were identified for me by K. C. Emer- 

 son, who wrote: "The two specimens you enclosed are Philo'pterus 

 citrinellae (Schrank, 1776). The long, thin specimen mentioned in 

 yom" letter was Bruelia sp. Also found on the host are species of 

 the genera Myrsidea, Menacanthus, Ricinus, and Machaerilaemus." 



Evening grosbeaks, however, seem to be remarkably free from bird 

 lice. Dm'ing the winter of 1945-46, G. Hapgood Parks (1947) banded 

 874 evening grosbeaks at Hartford, Conn. "The physical condition 

 of most of the birds which we trapped was excellent," he writes. 

 "They vv^ere very uniformly plump and vigorous * * *. Although a 

 quick examination was made of every bird we were able to discover 

 only one parasite * * *." Although the parasite was not identified, 

 he states that its characteristics "were very similar to those of the 

 common chicken -louse." A nestling my husband found under a 

 nesting tree in Ontario in June 1945 had white eggs of a dipterous 

 parasite in the mouth and on the dorsal feather tracts and also a 

 deposit of eggs over the left eye. 



When Gordon Lambert and Ross Baker collected a young bird 

 not long out of the nest in the Mattawa region of Ontario, 14 hip- 

 poboscids flew out from the bird's plumage. The fledgling was one 

 of four being fed by an adult, and the nest must have been heavily 

 infested. J. C. Bequaert has written me that the only bird-fly taken 

 thus far on evening grosbeaks is Ornithomyia fringillina Curtis, 

 and adds: "All in all, the fly is rarely seen on this species of bird and 

 perhaps only of accidental occurrence on it." He reports (1954) 

 that there have been six published captures from the eastern race, one of 

 which came from Alberta (Strickland, 1938) and the others from 

 Ontario. Mrs. Downs has found these bird-flies on 10 juvenal 

 grosbeaks at her banding station in Vermont. One was taken from 

 an adult. Most of the birds she has handled have been free from 

 bird-flies. 



C. H. D. Clarke (1934) coUected a male in Algonquin Park that had 

 a tapeworm (Cestoda) in its intestines and microfilaria in its blood- 

 stream. Of six specimens taken at Brule Lake, Algonquin Park, in 

 the summer of 1934, he found three, including the one above, para- 

 sitized by blood protozoa, the second being infested by flagellates of 

 the genus Trypanosoma, and the third by sporozoa of the genus 



