Vol i8^6 UI ] Knight, The Pine Grosbeak in Captivity. 2 1 



that such a faunal study as I have mentioned, embracing any 

 extended area, has ever been made. 



In a recent article in 'The Auk' (Vol. XII, 'The Summer 

 Range of Colorado Birds ') Prof. Cooke ignores any such element 

 as this in the study of Colorado birds, and for this reason he may 

 describe anything but a natural state of affairs. For instance, the 

 present status of the Western Meadovvlark, Mourning Dove, Say's 

 Phcebe, and Bullock's Oriole, in the Cache la Poudre Valley, 

 must of a necessity be very different from what it was forty years 

 ago, when nothing existed there to modify the natural distribution 

 of the species. Thus it is entirely possible that Prof. Cooke's 

 statement that " there is a greater variety of birds among the 

 foothills, but not so many individuals as on the p'ains," may 

 represent only an artificial condition. To describe the range of 

 an animal like the buffalo, which occurred in immense numbers 

 over a large part of the United States, as "very rare, occurring in 

 small herds of some half a dozen individuals each, in remote fast- 

 nesses of the Rocky Mountains," would be but illy describing the 

 life and distribution of the hordes of the plains. 



At some few localities investigations have been carried on to 

 determine the primitive and natural distribution of birds in our 

 desert regions. But these regions are not now being irrigated 

 and probably never will be. Studies should be prosecuted now 

 in those regions liable to irrigation. It is from these as a basis 

 that exact comparisons can be drawn in future years, and exact 

 values given of effects produced by such tremendous surface 

 changes as those occasioned by irrigation and the settlement of 

 the arid region. 



THE PINE GROSBEAK IN CAPTIVITY. 



BY O. W. KNIGHT. 



The winter of 1892-93 will be long remembered by Maine 

 ornithologists on account of the great number of Pine Grosbeaks 

 {Pinicola enucleator) which visited this State. November 16, 1892, 



