8o Birds of Lakeside and Prairie 



Nature's handsome children. The body of the male is bril- 

 liant yellow, while the tail is jet black. The wings are sharply 

 contrasted black and white. It is not at all a graceful bird. 

 Its body is chunky and its movements are awkward, the legs 

 and feet seemingly being unequal to the task of supporting 

 the bulk of body and feathers. The discoverers of the gros- 

 beaks were kind enough to tell me of the birds' presence in 

 Graceland and I went with them the next day and found the 

 creatures in the place they had first been seen. There is 

 something very childlike perhaps in the joy one feels in mak- 

 ing a new bird acquaintance. I never before had seen a living 

 evening grosbeak. There are men who have made ornithology 

 a vocation rather than an avocation, and yet never have met 

 this bird. The Graceland grosbeaks spent about half the 

 time in a clump of evergreens, flying from there to some box- 

 elders where they would feast for a while on the buds. There 

 were between twenty and thirty individuals in the flock. 

 Within a stone's throw of the birds' feeding-place workmen 

 were hammering spikes on an elevated railroad then under 

 construction. The din was nearly deafening. Added to this, 

 a locomotive with a tool train was puffing backward and for- 

 ward on the surface road beneath the elevated structure. 

 The grosbeaks paid no attention to the racket. They also 

 appeared absolutely fearless of the three human beings who 

 stood just beneath them almost within arm's reach and 

 ogled them through opera-glasses. Although the grosbeaks 

 were strangers in this part of the country, they seemed to 

 know the Illinois bluejay well enough and to share with other 

 birds the antipathy felt for this feathered thief. One of the 

 male grosbeaks attacked a jay that had approached the feed- 

 ing-place, and the two fought in midair. I have told else- 



