194 General Notes. [^ 



Evening Grosbeaks again in Massachusetts. — Mr. M. Abbott Frazar has 

 kindly given me permission to report the fact that, on the morning of 

 February 7, 1909, he met with a small flock of Evening Grosbeaks at 

 Townsend, Massachusetts. He was returning from a walk when he started 

 the birds from the ground where they had been feeding on the fallen fruit 

 of a rock maple that stands within twenty feet of the front steps of his farm 

 house. They flew across the road to a smaller maple in which they alighted 

 and remained for several minutes, allowing him to approach them closely 

 and to obtain a good view of them. There were about ten of them, all in 

 the plumage of the female. Their next flight was to the top of a tall pine 

 some two hundred yards further off. Here they stayed a somewhat shorter 

 time, before taking wing again, to disappear in the far distance. Mr. 

 Frazar had been away from Townsend for four days before the date above 

 mentioned. He was told that during his absence the Grosbeaks had been 

 seen repeatedly by a man who works on his place. They have not since 

 returned to it as far as he can learn. He was constantly on the watch for 

 them during the remainder of his stay at Townsend, which terminated 

 on the morning of February 11, when he came back to Boston. Not long 

 after this he received and forwarded to me two letters written by a man liv- 

 ing in South Sudbury, Massachusetts, who claims that his "door yard" 

 was visited on February 14th, and again on the 15th, 1909, by three Even- 

 ing Grosbeaks, two of which were males. 



If I remember rightly, Evening Grosbeaks are known to have occurred in 

 eastern Massachusetts on but two occasions prior to these; in 1890 when 

 they appeared in considerable numbers, at many different localities, in 

 January, February, and March; and on March 23, 1904, when five were 

 found together in Beverly and three of them killed, by Mr. C. E. Brown. 1 — ■ 

 William Brewster, Cambridge, Mass. 



The Cardinal at Ipswich, Mass. — Last week a friend of mine at Ipswich 

 wrote me that for the past two or three weeks there had been a beautiful 

 strange bird which had been coming into his door-yard for food. The one 

 that he described was practically red all over with a very bright crest on his 

 head. At my earliest opportunity I visited the farm to find that when the 

 bird came at noon he was a beautiful Cardinal. He has been there about 

 a month up to the present writing and comes regularly to the door-yard 

 for seeds and bread crumbs which are put out for the birds each day. He 

 keeps very close to the house practically the entire time, living in some 

 very thick clumps of spruce trees not far away. He has gradually become 

 very tame so that he will come to within a few feet of the people who are 

 feeding him. On the coldest mornings when the thermometer has regis- 

 tered in the vicinity of zero his disposition has been of the most cheerful, 

 seeming to mind the cold not in the least and jumping about very actively, 

 even coming to the window and calling for the food if it has not been put 

 out in time for him. 



i 



i Auk, Vol. XXI, July, 1904, p. 385. 



