1S90.] General Notes. Q3 



Notes upon Coccothraustes vespertina as a Cagebird. — In 'The Auk' 

 for January, 1889, I presented a few notes having reference to the sudden 

 appearance, at Fort Wingate, New Mexico, of the Evening Grosbeak in 

 considerable numbers. The migration to which my remarks referred oc- 

 cured in October and November, 1888, and I went on to say how fortu- 

 nate I was upon that occasion in collecting quite a number of those 

 beautiful birds. As the flocks became larger and more numerous I would. 

 in firing into them with the fine dust shot I was using, often wound 

 several individuals, but these were despatched in the usual way and 

 either skins or skeletons made up from the specimens. Later, however, 

 the thought struck me that it would be a good thing to try and save some 

 of these slightly wounded ones with the view of making cage pets of them, 

 and as luck would have it the very same afternoon I came upon a Hock 

 numbering considerably over a hundred. They were resting in an old, 

 leafiess pinon tree, and in the midst of the Mock sat a stately male whose 

 olive green coat was nearly black, it was so dark, and the white of his 

 wings was dazzling in contrast, it was so very white. At the double re- 

 port of my gun a dozen or fifteen came tumbling down through the tree, 

 and fell upon the spotless, drifted snow beneath it; — such beauties! 

 Among them, with his jet-black wings and tail spread out upon this 

 powdery frozen carpet, lav the hue old patriarch of the (lock, for I had 

 made him the target of my first barrel. After all these specimens 

 had been cared for, each placed with the due precautions in its separate 

 paper cone, there was discovered sitting on a side-twig of another scrubby 

 pine, near by, a tine female, that had evidently sustained some wounds. 

 Upon capturing her these were found to consist in a broken wing and leg, 

 and an oblique shot through the corner of the eve, but red-eved and 

 fractured as she was, I determined to take her home in her then condition 

 and see what good nursing would do towards repairing her numerous 

 injuries. 



To shorten this part of my account, I will only add that in tine time she 

 made a most excellent recovery, and long before that came about she had 

 become wonderfully gentle, and allowed me to handle her without 

 biting me with her powerful beak, as she would do for a week or more 

 just after her capture. She was kept upon a pine bough in the deep re- 

 cess of a window in my study, and fed every day upon fresh cedar berries 

 of which these birds are inordinately fond, and with which she would 

 gorge herself as fast as she could see to pick them from the branches by the 

 aid of her single good eye, and her crippled limbs to get about among the 

 twigs with. Shortly her eye was much improved, and she would whistle 

 shrilly as soon as she caught sight of me coming towards her with a fresh 

 branch loaded with her favorite food. In eating the berries the outside 

 skin and soft part are rapidly removed by rolling them deftly around 

 between the powerful mandibles, when the seed is quickly swallowed, 

 and the bird ducks over and picks a fresh one to extract the seed in 

 the same manner, and this she would keep up until her alimentary canal 

 seemed almost ready to burst with the unnatural distention. Sometime 



