CoUES's History of the Evening Grosbeak. 73 



regarded. On the other hand, we have witnesses to their occur- 

 rence and probable residence on the table-lands of Mexico, not far 

 from the capital city of that country, where Sumichrast observed 

 them in the pine woods of Monte Celto, in May, 1857. Mr. Hen- 

 shaw considers the species to be "doubtless a rare resident" in 

 Arizona, in which Territory he secured a specimen in September, 

 near Camp Apache. As I have intimated, oiir rather meagre rec- 

 ords do not furnish the data for the full solution of the question ; 

 and they are in some respects so conflicting apparently, as well as 

 fragmentary, that we feel our doubts rather increased than removed 

 when we compare them. It would appear in present light, however, 

 that the bird is scarcely a true migrant, but rather a wanderer 

 according to exigencies of food supply, to some extent resembling 

 the Bohemian Waxwing, the Pine Grosbeak, Red-poll Linnet, Cross- 

 bill, and species of Plectrophane.s. Its general habits, and some 

 traits of its character, especially its sociability, familiarity with 

 man, and ways of feeding, are those of Crossbills, Red-polls, and cer- 

 tain other northerly Fringillidce, rather than of such species as the 

 Rose-breasted, Black-headed, Cardinal, and Blue Grosbeaks, with 

 which it seems to be nevertheless related in some technical 

 characters. 



The erratic movements just intimated to be probably chargeable 

 to this singular bird bring it at times to localities remote from its 

 usual centres of abundance. I shall conclude with consideration of 

 this point, in sketching the geographical distribution of the species. 

 Our early accounts, as I have pi'esented them, indicated a range 

 along the northern border of the United States from Michigan west- 

 ward to the ocean, and Richardson ascribed to the bird a northward 

 extension to latitude 56° N. But since those days it has been 

 traced much farther south and east. Being a bird of woodland, it 

 will not be found on the great plains ; but, aside from any matters 

 of local distribution resulting from surftice-conditions of the coimtry, 

 this Grosbeak may be said to inhabit the United States from the 

 outliers of the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific. It is thus essen- 

 tially a Western species ; but in the region of the Great Lakes, and 

 for some little distance thence southerly, it stretches far to the 

 eastwai'd, not in solitai-y and fortuitous instances, but regularly, or 

 at any rate freqviently. Its normal range cannot well be short of 

 Canada, in different localities in which Dominion specimens have 

 not seldom been secured. Thus Mr. Mcllwraith states, in the paper 



