GROSBEAKS. 



141 



Writing from Vermont (" Ornithologist and Oologist," 

 Vol. X., p. 37), C. 0. Tracey says: "This bird is a 

 fairly common summer resident of this locality." 



" The sexes arrive together. The male is at once 

 conspicuous, both by his beautiful plumage and 

 melodious song. While essentially a forest bird and 

 one must see and hear him in his forest home to see 

 his full beauty and hear him in his happiest song 

 they often come into the orchard and shade trees about 

 our homes. Along the lightly timbered river banks 

 and roadsides they find their favourite breeding places, 

 but these must be at no great distance from the more 

 heavily timbered forest. The forked top of a sapling 

 is usually selected for a nesting place. Sometimes, 

 however, the horizontal branch of a large forest tree 

 is chosen. The nest is a frail structure, made of fine 

 dry twigs and a few grass or weed stalks. Sometimes 

 only twigs are used, and these are nearly always 

 hemlock. It is seldom less than eight, or more than 

 twenty, feet from the ground. The full complement of 

 ggs is usually four, sometimes but three. Dimensions 

 vary from .1 by .75 to .90 by .70 of an inch; colour 

 greenish-blue, spotted with different shades of brown. 

 "Most of their eggs are laid the first week in June. 

 The earliest and latest dates that I have taken full 

 fresh sets are June 2nd and 23rd. Both sexes incubate, 

 the male performing his full share of this important 

 duty. My records show that where I have made obser- 

 vations in thirty-four cases, the nests were occupied by 

 males twenty-three times 1 and females eleven. By the 

 second week in September they have all departed for 

 the south." 



Dr. Russ, who had several pairs and successfully bred 

 the species in his bird-room, tells us that his birds 

 used to breed twice in the spring ; he says, moreover, 

 that ^they build a large artistic nest, as high as possi- 

 ble, in a nest basket or cage; lay almost invaribly four 

 eggs, incubated by the hen alone ; the young are fed 

 by both parents with fresh ants' cocoons and egg bread, 

 later with egg bread, soaked seed, mealworms, and 

 other insects. 



_ Although I have never seen this bird in captivity in 

 this country, Dr. Russ says that it was annually im- 

 ported with tolerable regularity by Reiche and Hagen- 

 beck into Germany ; though even there it fetched a 

 fairly high price (i.e., from about 1 10s. to 52 14s. a 

 pair). He praises it as an admirable singer, tame, trust- 

 ful, and easy to breed. It is therefore marvellous, 

 indeed, that so widely distributed a species was not as 

 abundant in our bird-market as the far less satisfactory 

 Virginian Cardinal. 



In the autumn the rose-red disappears from the 

 plumage of this bird, to reappear at the approach of 

 the breeding season. This fact, observed by Dr. Russ, 

 has been questioned by scientists. 



This species has been exhibited more than once in the 

 London Zoological Gardens. 



BLACK-HEADED GROSBEAK (Hedymeles melanocephalus] . 

 Above black; the feathers of the mantle with a sub- 

 terminal bar of white and pale fawn ; lower back and 

 rump uniform fawn-colour ; upper tail-coverts tipped 

 with pale fawn ; inner lesser wing-coverts tipped with 

 white, and inner median coverts wholly white ; greater 

 coverts and secondaries tipped on outer web with 

 white ; primaries white at base and edged with white 

 at tip of outer web ; outermost tail-feather with a large 

 white spot near end of inner web, the second feather 

 with a smaller spot, and the third with only the fringe 

 white ; head all round black, separated from the back 

 by a broad tawny collar ; back of cheeks, sides of 

 t;eck, and under parts deep orange tawny ; centre of 



breast yellow ; centre of abdomen, thighs, and under 

 tail-coverts white ; axillaries and under-wing coverts 

 bright yellow ; flights below black with a white basal 

 patch ; beak olive, fleshy white at base below ; feet 

 slate-colour; irides brown.* Female less black; above 

 ashy-brown streaked with black ; mantle with tawny 

 or whitish borders to the feathers ; rump of a more 

 sandy hue ; upper tail-coverts ashy, dusky to- 

 wards ends and tipped with white ; lesser wing- 

 coverts ashy ochreous with dusky bases ; median 

 and greater coverts browner and tipped with 

 white ; flights dusky externally, edged with ashy ; 

 primaries white towards base and end of outer web ; 

 inner secondaries tipped with white on outer web ; tail 

 dusky, with ashy edges ; crown mottled with brownish, 

 blackish at sidesi, and with a whitish or ochreous cen- 

 tral streak, ticked with black ; eyebrow-stripe, lores and 

 feathers below eye white; eyelid, sides of face, and 

 ear-coverts blackish-brown ; cheeks and under surface 

 pale buffish, brighter on sides and flanks, the former 

 streaked with black ; the flanks with finer streaks ; 

 centre of breast yellowish ; abdomen and under tail- 

 coverts whitish, slightly tinted with fawn ; axillaries 

 and under wing-coverts bright yellow ; flights dusky, 

 with ashy inner edges. 



J. G. Cooper ("Ornith. Calif.," Vol. I., pp. 228,229) 

 says: "This fine bird arrives in the State near San 

 Diego about April 12th, and is numerous during 

 .summer throughout the mountains, both of the coast 

 and the Sierra Nevada, extending its migrations as far 

 as Puget's Sound at least. They are often kept in 

 cages on account of their loud and sweet song, which 

 resembles that of the Robin, but is louder arid shorter. 

 In the coast mountains, in May, their music is delight- 

 ful, the males vieing with each other from the tops of 

 the trees, and making the hills fairly ring with their 

 melody. 



" A nest I found May 12th, at the eastern base of 

 the coast range, was built on a low, horizontal branch 

 of an alder, consisting of a few sticks and weeds, very 

 loosely put together, and with a lining of roots and 

 grass. The eggs were only three, pale bluish-white, 

 thickly spotted with brown, densely near large end, 

 size 0.95 by 0.70. According to Heermann they also 

 build in bushes. 



" They frequent the ground in search of food, but 

 also live much in trees, and feed sometimes on their 

 buds. _ They are not very gregarious, merely assembling 

 in families in tJhe autumn, and, unlike the Evening Gros- 

 beak (Hesperiphona). to which they have much external 

 resemblance, do not fly high nor make any sound when 

 flying." 



This species was received by the London Zoological 

 Society from Mexico', and exhibited in their Gardens. 



NORTHERN BLUE GROSBEAK (Guiraca ccerulea). 

 Above bright cobalt blue ; mantle, scapulars, and 

 upper back deeper blue, with blackish bases to the 

 feathers ; median wing-coverts deep chestnut ; greater 

 coverts blackish, washed with blue externally, and fre- 

 quently fringed with chestnut ; flights and tail-feathers 

 blackish, dull bluish externally; the tail-feathers with 

 white fringe at tips of inner webs, becoming more con- 

 spicuous towards the outermost feather ; a black patch 

 from beak to eye, continued over base of cheeks and 

 chin ; under surface brighter cobalt, becoming duller 

 on abdomen, thighs, and under tail-coverts; the latter 

 and vent with white fringes ; flights below dusky, with 

 inner edges ashy ; beak blackish, tomium and under 



*Dr. Sharpe quotes this description of the soft parts as applying to 

 the IV in, ile only, but in Cooper's description it immediately follows 

 the measurements of the male. 



