i 



. t 



280 



FINCHES, SPARROWS, ETC. 



States. At irregular intervals it invades the northeni Mississippi 

 Valley in numbers, while still more rarely it extends its wanderings 

 to the north Atlantic States. It travels in flocks of from six or eight 

 to sixty individuals which by their tameness show their ignorance of 

 man and his ways. They feed largely on the buds or seeds of trees — 

 maple, elder, and box elder. Their notes are described by different 

 observers as a shrill " cheepy-teet,''' and a " frog-like peep" while one 

 writer remarks that " the nudes have a single metallic cry like the 

 note of a trumpet, and the females a loud chattering like the large 

 Cherry Birds {Ampelis garnilun)" Their song is given as a wander- 

 ing, jerky warble, beginning low, suddenly increasing in power, and 

 as suddenly ceasing, as though the singer were out of breath. 



During the winter and early spring of 1K90 there was a phenom- 

 enal incursion of Evening Grosbeaks into the Northern States, ac- 

 counts of which, by Amos W. Butler, will be found in The Auk, ix, 

 1893, pp. 238-247; x, 1893, pj). 155-157. 



615. Pinicola enucleator (Linn.). 1'ink (iicosnKAK. Ad.s.— 

 Slaty gray, more or lews strongly waslied with rose-red, strongest on tlio 

 crown, rump, ui>i)er tail-eoverts, and breast; wings fuscous, their coverts 

 edged witli white ; tail fuscous. A(/. 9 . — >>luty gray, erown, upper tall-cov- 

 erts, and breast more or less strongly washed with olive-yellow; wings and 

 tail as in the 6 . 7/«.— Keseml^es the v . L., 'J-08 ; W., 4-3G ; T., 3-67 ; B., -54. 



liaiKje. — " Morthern portions of tlie northern hemisphere, hreeding far 

 north ; in winter soutli, in North America, irregularly to the nortliern United 

 States." 



Washington, casual in winter. Siiux Sing. irreL'ular W. V., Dec. 18 to 

 Apl. 12. Cambridge, irregular W. V.. frequently coiunion, sometimes abun- 

 dant, Nov. to Mch. 



Nest., of twigs and rootlets lined with finer uir.terlals, in coniferous trees a 

 few feet up. yv/f/,s',"palc grecnisli blue, spotted and blotched with dark brown 

 surface markings and lilay shell spots, 1-0.") x •74." 



The Pine Grosbeak, hke the Spruce Partridge and Canada Jay, may 

 bo said to find its true home in the coniferous forest or Canadian belt, 

 which cros.'^cs the continent diagonally from .Maine to Alaska. 



Like many of its congeners in this inhospitable region, it nests so 

 early in the springtime that the winter's frost and snow are still 

 dominant among the evergreens when the eggs come to claim the at- 

 tention of the pair. 



Its habits at this season are but little known, as very few natural- 

 ists have had the opportunity of seeing it in its native pine wood. 

 But in midwinter, when it cotnes southward in search of food, it is a 

 well-known frequenter, in flocks, of plantations of mountain-ash trees, 

 or groups of sunnich bushes, whose unfallen berries provide it with a 

 bountiful supply of nourishing diet. 



