Conspicuously Yellow and Orange 
Evening Grosbeak 
(Coccothraustes vespertinus) Finch family 
Length—8 inches. Two inches shorter than the robin. 
Male—Forehead, shoulders, and underneath clear yellow; dull 
yellow on lower back; sides of the head, throat, and breast 
olive-brown. Crown, tail, and wings black, the latter with 
white secondary feathers. Bill heavy and blunt, and yellow. 
Female—Brownish gray, more or less suffused with yellow. 
Wings and tail blackish, with some white feathers. 
Range—Interior of North America. Resident from Manitoba 
northward. Common winter visitor in northwestern United 
States and Mississippi Valley; casual winter visitor in north- 
ern Atlantic States. 
In the winter of 1889-90 Eastern people had the rare treat of 
becoming acquainted with this common bird of the Northwest, 
that, in one of its erratic travels, chose to visit New England and 
the Atlantic States, as far south as Delaware, in great numbers. 
Those who saw the evening grosbeaks then remember how 
beautiful their yellow plumage—a rare winter tint—looked in the 
snow-covered trees, where small companies of the gentle and even 
tame visitors enjoyed the buds and seeds of the maples, elders, 
and evergreens. Possibly evening grosbeaks were in vogue for 
the next season’s millinery, or perhaps Eastern ornithologists 
had a sudden zeal to investigate their structural anatomy. At 
any rate, these birds, whose very tameness, that showed slight 
acquaintance with mankind, should have touched the coldest 
heart, received the warmest kind of a reception from hot shot. 
The few birds that escaped to the solitudes of Manitoba could not 
be expected to tempt other travellers eastward by an account of 
their visit. The bird is quite likely to remain rare in the East. 
But in the Mississippi Valley and throughout the northwest, 
companies of from six to sixty may be regularly counted upon as 
winter neighbors on almost every farm. Here the females keep 
up a busy chatting, like a company of cedar birds, and the males 
punctuate their pauses with a single shrill note that gives little 
indication of their vocal powers. But in the solitude of the north- 
ern forests the love-song is said to resemble the robin’s at the 
start. Unhappily, after a most promising beginning, the bird 
suddenly stops, as if he were out of breath. 
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