WESTERN EVENING GROSBEAK 249 



took one from the stomach of a horned owl in August." In the 

 same letter he tells of a northern shi-ike attacking an evening gTosbeak 

 near his home in British Columbia : 



Once in very cold weather with 14 inches of snow on the ground I saw a fine 

 adult n. shrike chase a cf ad. evening grosbeak and pounce on him as he took 

 cover almost at my feet. I expected to see a good fight as this grosbeak has a 

 powerful bite as I well know (it can crack cherry stones). But there was no 

 fight: the shrike killed him with one quick nip and carried his prey right away in 

 its claws, not in its bill. I followed up as quick as I could get a gun but the snow 

 was unmarked for 100 yards and the shrike must have carried its prey into some 

 thick thorn bushes beyond that. There would be very little difference in then- 

 respective weights. 



G. J. Spencer (194S) reports that a louse, Philopterus suhHavescens 

 Geoffrey was taken from one of these birds in British Columbia. 

 The bird-fly, Ornithomyia fringillina Curtis, was taken from two 

 grosbeaks in the same province, one at Lytton and one at Okanagan 

 Landing (Bequaert, 1954). A Hver fluke, Olssoniella chivosca n. sp. 

 was reported by I. Pratt and C. Cutress (1949): "Western evening 

 grosbeaks collected during the spring migrations of 1947 and 1948 

 in CorvaUis, Oregon, were found to be heavily infected with a trem- 

 atode inhabiting the bile passages of the liver." However, most 

 evening grosbeaks are remarkably free from external or internal 

 parasites. 



Fall. — Otto McCreary (1939) teUs us that the evening grosbeak has 

 been observed in the State of Wyoming during all seasons. They 

 are "most nimierous at Green River (Dorothy Waltman) and at 

 Laramie during the months of May, June, October, and November, 

 indicating migration at this season of the year." He wrote me that 

 the earliest fall record in the Laramie Mountains was October 8. 

 The species usually arrives at Laramie during the last week of October 

 and departs early in November, but some years it remains throughout 

 the winter and into May, as in 1939. 



R. L. Hand has written me about autumn concentrations of evening 

 grosbeaks in Idaho: "In the faU I recall days in the 1920's when they 

 were present along the Lochsa River for miles, literally by the thou- 

 sands though never in compact flocks of more than 40 or 50 birds 

 together. At no time have I seen them in such abundance since." 



On Sept. 9, 1924, Ira N. Gabrielson (1926) saw another im- 

 pressive concentration while driving up Beech Creek canyon 

 (which enters the John Day valley at Mount Vernon, Oreg.). Blue 

 jays, magpies, robins, evening grosbeaks, and towhees were feeding 

 on wild cherries. "Robins and Evening Grosbeaks far outnum.- 

 bered all the rest," he whites, "literally thousands of both species 

 being present." 



