326 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 23 7 pabt i 



Winter. — Davis writes to me: "I have not been able to detect any 

 evidence of migration among the seedeaters here. We seem to have 

 just as many in winter as in summer. There is some local shifting 

 about of population, and sometimes we see loose flocks of 100 or more 

 in winter. Such flocks are hkely to be found in tall grasses along 

 resacas." 



Distribution 



Range. — Sharpe's seedeater is resident from central Nuevo Le6n 

 (Monterrey) and southern Texas (Rio Grande City, Port Isabel) 

 south to eastern San Luis Potosi (Valles) and northern Veracruz 

 (Laguna Tamiahua). 



Egg dates. — Texas: 37 records, March 12 to September 3; 20 

 records, April 26 to May 25. 



PINICOLA ENUCLEATOR LEUCURA (MuUer) 



Canadian Pine Grosbeak 



PLATE 18 



Habits 



One winter morning many years ago, during my boyhood days, I 

 looked out of one of our windows and was surprised to see a number 

 of strange birds in one of our maple trees; they were sitting quietly 

 or moving about slowly, apparently feeding on the leaf buds; they 

 looked very plump and seemed to be dark gray in color. Even 

 after one was shot, I could not identify it until I had consulted the 

 bird books in the public library and decided that it was a pine gros- 

 beak. We saw much of them that winter, and we boys amused our- 

 selves by catching them under a sieve, propped up by a stick with a 

 string attached to it. They were so tame that we could walk up to > 

 them and almost catch them in our hands. We kept one rosy male 

 in a large cage, where he proved to be a docile pet and a good singer, 

 but we released him in the spring. 



This grosbeak makes its summer home in the coniferous forests of I 

 Canada, northern New England, and possibly in some of the extreme ■ 

 northern parts of some of the more western States. It breeds as 

 far north as the limit of trees in northern Canada, from the Anderson 

 River region to northern Ungava and Labrador. South of the Cana- 

 dian border it is rare or extremely local. 



Courtship. — Dr. and Mrs. J. Murray Speirs observed courtship 

 feeding near North Bay, Ontario, on Mar. 30, 1944. Mrs. Speirs 

 writes that, while snow was falling with a southwest wind, a male 

 that had been feeding on wiUow buds flew suddenly toward a female 



