MORE ABOUT MY FEATHERED FRIENDS. 77 



it is the paterfamilias who leads the flock, the spring or 

 summer hatch. 



In our winter gardens, and in groves where there are 

 evergreens, balsam-firs, spruce and cedars, the pine 

 grosbeaks may be seen busily searching, for seeds and 

 insects, scattering showers from the dry cones they tear 

 asunder, it may be, for the seeds or for the hidden larvse 

 of the pine-destroying Buprestians with which many 

 species of the cone-bearing trees are infested. The larch 

 and spruce are destroyed by the larvse of the Saw-fly, 

 and the spruce particularly by the Bud-moth. 



The grosbeak is a handsome bird when in full 

 plumage. The rich cinnamon-brown, varying in shades, 

 of the females and young birds, though fine, is not com- 

 parable to the dark crimson, shaded to black, of the 

 older male birds. In size the full-grown birds are as 

 large, or nearly as large, as an English blackbird or 

 thrush. 



The thick bill marks the family of the grosbeaks, of 

 which the English bullfinch alsp is one. This form of 

 the bill is very well suited to the food of the bird, 

 consisting as it does of hard nutty berries, juniper and 

 red cedar, and the seeds of the cone-bearing trees. This 

 seems to be more especially his winter bill-of-fare, for in 

 the autumn the berries of the mountain ash are eagerly 

 sought and evidently enjoyed. 



