90 AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 



MY PINE GROSBEAKS. 



By Clayton E. Stone. 



In your magazine for December, 1905, I was quite interested in the arti- 

 cle entitled, "A Family of Chickadees." 



For quite a number of years I have taken considerable care to call the 

 birds about my home that I might become better acquainted with them, and 

 to study their habits. Each winter my yard is well filled with feeding places 

 for my feathered friends. And, to judge from the number of birds that 

 frequent these every day during the winter, I should think that they were 

 very much appreciated by them. 



Jays, j uncos, tree sparrows, downy and hairy woodpeckers, nuthatches, 

 goldfinches and an occasional brown creeper and lots of chickadees. These 

 have become so tame that I fed them from my hands, and they will often 

 light upon my cap, and we are very companionable in many ways. 



But b}^ far the most interesting of all my winter birds were my flock of 

 pine grosbeaks, that were with me during the winter of IpOS and 1904. 



While riding along a pine-bordered road in my town (Lunenburg, Mass.), 

 late in November (the 27th), I was surprised to hear the call of one of these 

 wanderers from the north and a moment later three of them, one red and 

 two yellow, were perching on the top of a low pine, not thirty feet from me. 



During that winter they were very abundant. I had a flock of a dozen or 

 more of them that stayed about my farm all winter, until late in March (the 

 30th), and during that time they became very familiar and friendlj^ A tub, 

 in which I had flowers in summer, was about four feet from my doorway, 

 and this I converted into a dining table for the birds, and hardly a day 

 passed all winter that the grosbeaks did not make it a visit. 



Of all the different species of birds I have ever met with I think the gros- 

 beaks have the least fear of man. While feeding, there would be as many as 

 half a dozen within two feet of me and they would take food from my hand. 



One partiallj' red male, with a few broken feathers in its back, would 

 allow me to stroke it as you would a cat. (The bird nearest me in the picture 

 I enclose is the one I speak of). While the grosbeaks were with me I ex- 

 perimented with them to find out what kind of food they liked best. Grain 

 such as corn, oats and wheat, they cared nothing for; crumbs and scraps 

 of meat they would not touch; they ate a few bird, cucumber and sunflower 

 seeds, but fresh cut apple they would gorge themselves with, a bird eating 

 as much as an eighth of a fair-sized apple at a single meal. 



Aside from their dining table, I never met with birds that were more 

 erratic in their feeding habits. They would feed upon the buds of one 

 species of tree or shrub in one locality, while in another, not ten rods distant 



