Nesting of the Pine Grosbeak in Nova Scotia 



By H. F. Tufts 



NEAR Shelburne on the south-west coast of Nova Scotia, the 15th day of 

 June, 1910, I secured a nest and three eggs of the Pine Grosbeak, un- 

 der the following circumstances: 



The wood-road which I was following led through a large area of wet 

 bog or mossy swamp, rather thickly overgrown with stunted spruce and 

 hackmetack and scattered bunches of swamp maple and laurel bushes. Mv 

 attention was attracted by the rich, full-throated, warbling song of a male 

 Pine Grosbeak on a tree top not far away. Wishing to study him more close- 

 ly, I succeeded in approaching within fifty feet. Soon his singing stopped, 

 and with a few whistled notes he flew directly into a swamp maple, whither 

 following, I found he had joined the company of a female. The two birds 

 were feeding upon the half-ripe maple seeds with which the tree was clus- 

 tered, snapping them off and crushing with their heavy beaks, making some 

 little noise in the operation. Feeding from branch to branch, they kept up 

 a continuous subdued twittering and were always together — mated birds evi- 

 dently. I became much interested, and though it was a far tramp home, and 

 growing late, with mosquitoes and black-flies in tormenting throngs, decided 

 to follow them up. 



Soon the female stopped feeding, hopped to a dead limb, where she 

 preened her feathers and rubbed her beak back and forth over the wood, re- 

 sembling in this action the stropping of a razor. Then suddenly she darted 

 quickly and straight away through the trees rather low down. The male bird, 

 at the same time, flew to a distant tall tree in another direction. 



Following the course taken by the female as nearly as I could, I search- 

 ed carefully among the densely branched spruces for a nest. After nearly an 

 hour of plunging through the bog, knee deep in water and slime, till dark- 

 ness was setting in and failure seemed certain, finally I noted a dark mass 

 some fifteen feet up a slender young spruce, close to its top. Giving the tree 

 a slight tap with my hand the bird flew off and I was delighted to recognize 

 the female Pine Grosbeak as she fluttered about close at hand. 



The nest, a rather bulky sprawling affair of twigs and grasses, resem- 

 bled somewhat in both situation and general make-up that of the Blue Jay. 

 The three eggs were rather advanced in incubation, containing young well 

 formed — but with the use of caustic potash the shells were properly emptied. 



The Pine Grosbeak breeds very locally and sparingly in Nova Scotia — 



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