172 LAND-BIRDS AND GAME-BIRDS. 
II. PINICOLA 
(A) ENuctEATOR. Pine Grosbeak. 
(In Massachusetts a winter-visitant of very irregular appear- 
ance.) 
(a). 8-9 inches long. g,carmine. Back dusky-streaked. 
Belly, almost white. Wings and tail, dusky (or black) ; former 
with much white. 9, “‘ashy-gray above and streaked. Paler 
below, and not streaked.” Crown (and rump) marked with 
rusty-yellow. 
(0). Dr. Brewer says: ‘‘No positively identified eggs of 
the American Pine Grosbeak are as yet known in collections.” 
A European specimen measures about 1:00 X ‘75 of an inch, 
and is greenish, blotched and spotted with brown and purplish, 
chiefly dark tints. Mr. Boardman found near Calais, Maine, 
“in an alder-bush, in a wet meadow,” a nest and two eBes, 
referable to this species. 
(c). The Pine Grosbeaks spend the summer-season in the 
cold regions which lie to the northward of New England, and ° 
though, I believe, common winter-residents in Maine and New 
Hampshire, are rather rare, or at least irregular, in their ap- 
pearance about Boston, and other parts of this State. They 
are sometimes common here throughout the winter, wandering 
in large flocks from place to place, but at other times are 
wholly absent during the year, or at the most are seen but 
once or twice after a cold ‘“‘snap” or a heavy storm. I have 
seen them from the first of November until the latter part of 
March, though their departure usually occurs earlier in the 
season, since they habitually breed in March and April. It is 
to be remarked that among our winter-birds of this family, the 
young almost invariably predominate, and often are unaccom- 
panied by mature specimens. This interesting fact has not, so 
far as I know, been satisfactorily explained, though it may 
possibly be due simply to an inability of ‘the young to with- 
stand the cold so well as their parents. Yet these birds are 
supposed to be regulated in their migrations almost entirely 
by supplies of food, and not to be affected by cold, since in 
