^°i8^^^J Brewster on the Pine Grosbeak. 24C 



A REMARKABLE FLIGHT OF PINE GROSBEAKS 

 {PIN/COLA ENUCLEA TOR) . 



BY WILLIAM BREWSTER. 



Toward the end of November, 1892, Pine Grosbeaks 

 appeared in eastern Massachusetts for the first time in three 

 years. My earliest date is November 21, when I heard a bird 

 in Concord, Mass. Soon after a flock was met with in Ipswich, 

 and by the first week in December the birds had been reported 

 in large numbers from Belmont, Wellesley Hills, Fitchburg and 

 other towns. 



On the 2 1 St of December, twenty-seven Grosbeaks, the first 

 I had seen in Cambridge, visited a red cedar behind our house, 

 and spent half an hour feeding on the abundant berries, but 

 with the exception of these birds I saw no more in the city 

 until the second week in January. Reports kept coming in, 

 however, of their appearance in unusual numbers in the sur- 

 rounding towns, and of their great increase in number during 

 the first weeks in January. Flocks of over a hundred birds 

 were seen in Wellesley Hills and in Arlington. 



On January 9 I met with a flock of about forty-five in some 

 spruces not far from the centre of the city, and near the same 

 place I found, next day, a flock of fully one hundred and 

 twenty-five. The owner of the grounds said that the birds 

 were first seen there on the morning of the 8th ; that during 

 this and the following day they devoted themselves to some 

 white ash trees immediately about his house ; and that by the 

 afternoon of the 9th they had stripped these trees of their fruit. 



When I first saw them they were assembling in a large white 

 ash which overhangs the street. This tree was loaded with fruit, 

 and with snow clinging to the fruit-clusters and to every twig. 

 In a few minutes it also supported more than a hundred Gros- 

 beaks who distributed themselves quite evenly over every part 

 from the drooping lower, to the upright upper, branches and 

 began shelHng out and swallowing the seeds, the rejected wings 

 of which, floating down in showers, soon gave the surface of the 



