9O THE BIRDS ABOUT Us. 



too, at this time, and a good many were killed, of 

 course. 



The Pine Grosbeak, a dull-red bird with white 

 wing-bands, is another winter visitor, and the weather 

 has to be very snowy to bring him down very far 

 from his native haunts. The few records I have of 

 this bird are all connected with phenomenal snow- 

 falls and not of the ordinary steady cold weather. 

 This reminds me that the reading-matter in our 

 many bird books is rather confusing. The general 

 ornithologies say the pine grosbeak is very rare, of 

 " accidental occurrence," and so on ; but in the bird- 

 full winder of 1889-90, Dr. Warren records, in his 

 " Birds of Pennsylvania," receiving forty specimens, 

 and refers to the bird simply as " irregular." Con- 

 sidering the hot reception they receive, even with the 

 temperature at zero, it is not strange that they are 

 irregular. The wonder is that they do not learn 

 enough to keep altogether away. 



Writing of this grosbeak, as seen in the mountains 

 of Colorado, T. M. Trippe informs Dr. Coues that 



" It is very tame, frequently alighting and feeding within a few 

 feet of one with the greatest composure. Its food seems to consist 

 principally of pine-seeds, but it is also fond of those of the birch 

 and alder, and occasionally descends to the ground, where it picks 

 up the seeds of various plants and probably a few insects. During 

 late summer and winter it has a very pleasing song, clear, sweet, 

 and flowing like that of the purple finch." 



In the Purple Finch we have a delightful New 

 England bird that comes into the Middle States and 

 southward every autumn, and while here is provok- 

 ingly silent, except that certain localities in Penn- 



