2 C 2 Brewster on t/ie Pine Grosbeak. f hil'^ 



spondent Qsl. Hardy), however, is sure that in Maine tliey ate the 

 pulp only incidentally in their efforts to get the seeds. 



With regard to the order of preference which the Grosbeaks 

 followed when more than one kind of suitable food was within 

 reach, it may be mentioned that eighteen specimens examined at 

 Andover, Mass., between Nov. 30 and Mar. 11, show that up to 

 the second week in January the birds ate ash-seeds almost exclu- 

 sively. Between that time and the beginning of March, they fed 

 chiefly on rotten apples, and during March mainly on maple buds. 

 A report from Arlington gives ash-seeds as their principal food 

 till January 15. rotten apples during February, and maple buds 

 in March. 



That the movements of the Grosbeaks were governed by the 

 abundance or absence of food was clearly shown by the behavior 

 of a flock of about thirty-six birds which appeared at West Med- 

 ford about the ist of December and soon stripped an English 

 hawthorn of its fruit. The owner of the place then put out hemp 

 seed to which the birds came regularly, collecting in the neigh- 

 boring pastures, and flying in a body to the feeding ground. The 

 hemp was placed on the top of a kennel surrounded by twenty 

 dogs, whose noise, however, did not seem to disturb the Grosbeaks 

 in the least. They fed four times a day — at morning, noon, four 

 p. M., and sundown. One day when the hemp had not been put out 

 for them, the birds ate all the seeds of a Roxbury waxwork vine 

 {Celastnis scandc/is). By February 16, their number had dimin- 

 ished to eighteen, but these came regularly, and grew exceed- 

 ingly tame. On March 12, the date of the last report, they had 

 increased again to twenty-eight. 



\\'ith regard to the relative number of bright males to dull 

 plumaged birds, the evidence shows very clearly that as the flight 

 pressed southwards the number of bright males steadily dimin- 

 ished until at Woods Hole, the southernmost station for Massa- 

 chusetts, flocks of a hundred members each often did not contain 

 a single red bird. This change in the normal ratio seems to have 

 been due chiefly if not wholly to the fact (attested by many differ- 

 ent observers) that as the flocks passed slowly through the more 

 thickly settled districts the conspicuous and attractive red birds 

 were nearly all picked off by country gunners and taxidermists. 



