36 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



gives a perfectly accurate account of the evening grosbeak, its 

 habits and its song. He writes in part: 



The accounts that have been published respecting them by the only two 

 authors to whom I have access, Mr. Nuttall and Bonaparte, are in many 

 respects incorrect. In the first place, it is stated that they are retiring and 

 silent during the day and sing only on the approach of evening. Here they 

 are remarkably noisy during the whole of the day from sunrise to sunset. 

 They then retire quietly to their roosts in the snmmits of the tall pines and 

 are not aroused until daylight streaks the east when they come forth to feed 

 as before. ... At other times, particularly about midday, the male some- 

 times selects a lofty pine branch and then attemps a song, but it is a miserable 

 failure and he seems conscious of it, for he frequently pauses and looks discon- 

 tented, then remains silent sometimes for some minutes and tries it again but 

 with no better success. The note is a single warbling call, exceedingly like 

 the early part of the robin's song but not so sweet and checked as though the 

 performer were out of breath. The song, if it may be so called, is to me a most 

 wearisome one. I am constantly listening to hear the stave contined and 

 am as constantly disappointed. Another error of the books is this: they 

 both state that the female is similar to the male in plumage. Now, this is 

 entirely a mistake. She is so very different in color and markings that were 

 it not for the size and color of the bill and its peculiar physiognomy one 

 might be induced to suppose it another species. The specimens in possession 

 of Mr. Leadbeater in London and from which Prince Bonaparte drew up his 

 description must all have been males. 



In spite of this correction Coues harks back to the birds' al- 

 leged twilight habits in his " Key to North American Birds" and 

 has a passage on the Evening Grosbeak which is worth quoting 

 as a specimen of the rhetoric in which a past generation of 

 ornithologists dared to indulge. 



A bird of distinguished appearance whose very name suggests the far-away 

 land of the dipping sun and the tuneful romance which the wild bird throws 

 around the close of day. Clothed in striking color-contrast of black, white 

 and gold, he seems to represent the allegory of diurnal transmutation; for his 

 sable pinions close around the brightness of his vesture, as night encompasses 

 golden hues of sunset while the clear white space enfolded in these tints fore- 

 tells the dawn of the morrow. 



Finally Languille as late as 1884 wrote that the Evening 

 Grosbeak is noted for its melodious evening song. Even yet 

 both the English and the modern scientific names for the bird, 



