FOOD HABITS OF THE GROSBEAKS. 
INTRODUCTION. 
Two distinct groups of finches or sparrows are commonly known 
as grosbeaks. One of these, which includes the pine and evening 
grosbeaks, is of little practical importance, since its members breed 
and pass most of their lives in mountainous regions, or in the northern 
parts of North America. The other group includes the cardinal, 
gray, rose-breasted, black-headed, and blue grosbeaks, which spend 
either the summer or the entire year within agricultural regions of 
the United States. Hence their food habits are of considerable im- 
portance to the farmer. 
_ The members of the first-named group may be dismissed with the 
statement that during the period when they occur in non-mountainous 
districts their food consists largely of wild seeds and berries. Appar- 
ently the best relished are those of mountain ash, choke cherry, box 
elder, white ash, and maple, and of spruce, red cedar, and other con- 
iferous trees. The food habits of the second group are treated in 
detail in the following pages. 
CARDINAL. 
(Cardinalis cardinalis. Plate I, Frontispiece.) 
DISTRIBUTION AND HABITS. 
The brilliant and easily recognized cardinal ranges over much of 
North America. It occurs from southernmost Mexico and northern 
Central America north to New York, Ontario, and northern Iowa, 
and west to central Kansas, Arizona, and Lower, California. In 
parts of this area the size and color have been so modified by climatic 
and other causes that 12 varieties or subspecies are distinguishable. 
Five of these reside in the United States, and while they bear no dis- 
tinctive vernacular names, the species as a whole is well supplied, 
being variously known as cardinal grosbeak or cardinal, Virginia 
nightingale, redbird, and. also as the crested or topknot redbird, 
in distinction from the summer redbird or tanager. 
The cardinal is resident wherever found; that is, the neighborhood 
where the bird rears its young is its home throughout the year. It is 
most abundant perhaps in the Southern States, where almost univer- 
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