4



therefore, clear that berries of the mountain ash are deadly

poison to captive Pine Grosbeaks.


With August, came heavy and almost incessant rains, and

this did not seem to suit my Canadian birds ; so that by the end

of the month a third had died in a rapid decline: it was a young

male in hen plumage. As I write, therefore, I have three birds

left, an adult male in rose plumage, a female and (I suspeCt) a

young male : the}?' are in moult and may be unable to stand our

sloppy climate ; but while they live they are charming, though

formidable to look at, being as large as Blackbirds, with stout beaks

like our Bullfinch/ 11 Doubtless, they could bite severely if they

pleased, but even when they are ill and y'ou pick them up, they

do not attempt to use their beaks, but merely utter their plain¬

tive call:— eer; eer, eer, eer.


The song, so far as I have heard it hitherto, is very low-

pitched ; a sort of liquid warbling ; but it is probable that this is

merely practice (usually known as recording) : the birds will sit

and sing on a branch within six or eight inches of 3'our head as

you stand in the aviary, and will take sunflower-seeds, cater¬

pillars, or spiders from your fingers. If 3 7 ou walk outside the

aviary one of them, at least, is certain to fly down to a ledge and

run or skip along beside you as you go, looking up sideways and

even occasionally reminding you with its eer , eer , that it would

like a dainty. Then, if you begin to dig, the bird quietly watches

until you have found a worm and, without the least excitement,

takes it from your fingers.


Sometimes two birds get hold of the same worm and

quietly tug until it divides in the centre ; they do not appear

even to dispute with any violence ; a grimace, after the fashion

of our Bullfinch, is usually enough : but the condition of the

birds when I first received them, with bare crowns and many

gaps in wing and tail-feathers, was evidence enough to prove that

the Pine Grosbeak can make himself objectionable if he chooses.


My conclusions, after brief experience, therefore, may be

summed up as follows: The Pine Grosbeak is the tamest and most

confiding of all finches, he is too lazy to be nervous, or spiteful ;

if you offer him a finger, he will taste the end with his tongue,

but will not bite it ; if he gets a sunflower-seed jammed in his

upper mandible, he will let you put your finger in his mouth to

hook it out : he is, therefore, most charming. But—I am afraid



* After completing tlieir moult in September, the young male died,

and was plucked by the survivors after his death.



