SONG-BIRDS. Grosbeak 



Female : Brownish, sulphur-yellow under wings ; no rosy tint ; heavy 



brown bill. 

 Song : A delightful, rolling warble, often heard toward evening. 

 Season : Common summer resident ; May 1 to middle September. 

 Breeds : From the Middle States northward. 

 Nest : A perfect circle, neatly made of fibres and grass, lined with 



finer grasses, placed in a low tree, or more frequently a thorn 



bush in old pastures near the edge of woods. 

 Eggs : Dirty green, with dark brown spots and speckles. 

 Mange : Eastern United States and southern Canada ; west to the 



eastern border of the Plains ; south in winter to Cuba, Central 



America, and northern South America. 



You will always remember the day when you first see 

 this Grosbeak. Its song may be familiar to you, though 

 you are wholly unconscious of it; for in the great spring 

 chorus you may mistake it for a particularly melodious 

 Robin, who has added a few Oriole notes to his repertoire. 

 The Grosbeak's song, however, has a retrospective quality 

 all its own, and shared by neither Robin or Oriole, — a sort 

 of dreaminess, in keeping with its habit of singing into the 

 night. Gibson says that its song is suffused with colour 

 like a luscious tropic fruit rendered into sound. 



The songster itself, if seen feeding, as it sometimes does, 

 upon the grass, is a dark, clumsy-looking bird, with an awk- 

 ward beak ; and it is only when you look at it from beneath, 

 as it perches in the trees, that you see the rosy shield and 

 flush under the outspread wings. 



I first identified bird and song one June twilight, after a 

 day when the roses had burst into sudden bloom; and it 

 seemed as if their glorious colour was reflected on this novel 

 bird and mingled with his song. I have never found the 

 nest near here, but Mr. Averill says that they breed freely 

 in the vicinity, and that this spring he saw a male covering 

 the nest, an unusual occurrence with birds of such conspic- 

 uous colouring. 



In some parts of Pennsylvania, according to Dr. "Warren, 

 the farmers protect this Grosbeak, owing to its services in 

 killing potato-bugs, and have christened it the Potato-bug 

 Bird. Its diet is varied, comprising beetles, flies, larvae, 



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