FEINGILLID^ — THE FINCHES. 223 



"It will, therefore, be a matter of interest to ornithologists to 

 learn that this exquisite bird is sometimes found further south and 

 at a less advanced season of the year. About the year 1872, while 

 hunting during the fine autumn weather, in the woods about Eureka, 

 Illinois, I fell in with a flock of these Grosbeaks, and succeeded in 

 killing six of their number. They were feeding in the tree tops on 

 the seeds of the sugar maple, just then ripening, and were exces- 

 sively fat. They were very unsuspicious, and for a long time ap- 

 peared to be incapable of realizing the havoc that I was making in 

 their ranks, as they tarried in the neighboring boughs and uttered 

 their call-notes to summon their missing companions. As the skins 

 of these birds afterward passed out of my hands, I can not now give 

 with certainty the year of their capture. Eureka is in Woodford 

 county, and one hundred and twenty miles nearly due south of 

 Freeport. It is about the same distance south of Waukegan." 



According to Mr. Thos. H. Douglas, of Waukegan (in letter dated 

 January 2, 1882), "these birds, when shot at, will fly into the nearest 

 large evergreens, where they sit perfectly still, and are very hard to be 

 seen, but after a few moments they begin to call and can easily be 

 discovered. I have repeatedly shot two or more out of the same 

 tree. They feed on the seeds of evergreens and sugar-maple buds. 

 Have known them to stay until May, when they ate the buds of 

 black ash and cottonwood. They were feeding on the latter in com- 

 pany with the Eose-breasted Grosbeak. I think we will get some 

 this winter, as there are very few evergreens seeding north of us, 

 and what are, are mostly blind seeds. I had one slightly wounded 

 in a cage for several days in the green-house, where it got to be 

 very tame, and seemed to prefer hemp seed to any other kind, 

 although I tried it with about a dozen kinds of evergreen seeds." 



Genus PINICOLA Vieillot. 



Pinicola Tieili. Ois. Am. Sept. 1, 1807, 4, pi. I, flg. 13. 



"Chak. Bill short, nearly as high as long; upper outline mueh curved from the base; 

 the margins of the mandibles roujided; the commissure gently concave, and abruptly 

 deflexedat the tip; base of the upper mandible much concealed by the bristly feathers 

 covering the basal third. Tarsus rather shorter than the middle toe; lateral toes short, 

 but their long claws reach the base of the middle one, whicli is longer than the hind 

 claw. Wings moderate ; the first quill rather shorter than the second, third, and fourth. 

 Tail rather shorter than the wings; nearly even." {Hist. N. Am. B.) 



