THE ROSE-BREASTED GROSBEAK 



To see a Grosbeak for the first time gives a student of birds 

 almost the same feeling of exaltation as the first sight of a Scarlet 

 Tanager. If one should hear, in the shade trees about the house, a 

 Robin singing much faster and with a richer voice than ever before, 

 and, after patient search, find the twig where the bird was singing, 

 one's first thought would probably be, "Some escaped cage bird from 

 the tropics." The head of the male Grosbeak is black, the tail and 

 wings black and white, but in the center of the white breast is a 

 triangle of pure rose, carried in some individuals far down the breast. 

 When the bird flies, the white patches in the wings have a peculiar 

 effect, like a circle of white. The large, almost monstrous bill, not 

 only accounts for the bird's name, but explains why he is put into 

 the same family with the sparrows. His nature, too, is eminently 

 practical, as a sparrow's should be; a favorite food is the potato bug. 



His mate lacks the black and rose, but her beak betrays her. 



She is not a particularly interesting bird, and does not even have 



the credit of excellence in household matters, at any rate as far 



as building her nest is concerned. It is made of a few coarse 



twigs loosely laid together, — a little platform through which the 



eggs sometimes show from below, and from which one would think 



they must certainly fall off. The nest is placed in a bush or low 



tree, and contains three or four greenish blue eggs, thickly marked 



with red. The young are out in July, and though a few Grosbeaks 



are occasionally seen in September, most of them have already left 



for the tropics by the end of the summer. The same joyous week 



19 



