Taming Evening Grosbeaks 



3'^3 



perfectly motionless, balls of gray, or golden fruit. Snow or rain matter not to 

 them. Except on one bitter, blizzardy day, they have always perched against the 

 sky-line. They chirp incessantly, like frogs or crickets — or perhaps they sound 

 more like the jingle of small sleigh-bells going slowly over a rutty road. When 

 feeding they give a less musical chirp. Once or twice we have heard their beauti- 

 ful carolling song, and they have occasionally a soft, throaty trill, almost like 

 a Bluebird's note. So noisy and so conspicuous have they been — particularly 

 on two days, March 8 and q, when they were joined by a flock of disdainful 

 Cedar Waxwings, annoyed to find the buckthorn feast that they had enjoyed 

 for two years gone — that chance passers-by frecjuently stop to watch them as 

 they squeak in the tree-tops, fly showily from tree to window, and perch 

 there, cracking the sunflower seeds with incredible ease and rapidity. 



Dozens of people have observed them from the vantage-ground of the dining- 

 room, often sitting within a yard or less of the window. The one day they 

 failed to come the family fought against depression, though the phenomenon 

 should have been staled by a month's daily repetition; and the day they came 

 back we were overjoyed, all of us echoing the rapturous exclamation of one of 

 us: "Seems to me they never looked so pretty before!" As a matter of fact, 

 the springtime attrition of their feathers was then just beginning to be noti- 

 ceable. Every day made the females a bit daintier, the males more brflliant. 



Contrary to the experience of Mr. Allen, of Ithaca, N. Y., as related in 

 Bird-Lore for November, 19 14, I do not find the Grosbeaks either stoHd or 

 stupid. They are surprisingly quick to discover new places where I scatter 



GROSBEAK GUESTS 



