■84 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VOL. III. 



resort to an island which is timbered in part with maple and box elder, 

 the seeds of which they make their regular diet, as they remain hanging 

 in bunches on the trees through the winter. 



During the winter in Manitoba they are usually seen in small parties, 

 not exceeding six or eight in number, and are quiet and unobtrusive in 

 their manner, flitting about the maples feeding, occasionally uttering their 

 single call note, which very much resembles that of the European Bullfinch. 



Early in April they congregate into large flocks, in which the males 

 preponderate, they are then restless, frequently rising from the tops of 

 the trees and making long flights high in the air over their haunts. 



In view of the fact that this bird's nest has never been found, it may be 

 worth noting, that the Pine Grosbeak, its usual winter associate, whose 

 nest and breeding place are known, arrives in this Province about the 

 middle of November, and leaves here about the end of March, whilst the 

 Evening Grosbeak arrives about six weeks earlier in the autumn, and 

 remains about six weeks later in its winter quarters, from which I should 

 infer that it does not go so far from its winter haunts to nest, as does the 

 Pine Grosbeak. 



In January 1890, immense numbers of these birds were seen in eastern 

 Canada and the United States, they having for some unexplained reason 

 wandered far from their range. A most peculiar feature of this move- 

 ment in Canada was the first appearance of the birds in the east, and 

 their gradual extension westward, exactly the reverse of what one would 

 expect from birds whose habitation is the interior of north-western 

 America. 



The first records I have of their occurrence at that time are from near 

 Montreal in Quebec, and Kingston in eastern Ontario, during the first 

 two weeks of January. At the end of this month they had reached 

 Toronto, where I saw them in considerable numbers; at this time they 

 were also seen in the States of New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. 

 Early in February they had reached the States of Ohio.Michigan and 

 Illinois. Judging from these records I assume that a large number of 

 the birds must have migrated from their summer home in an easterly 

 direction, until they reached the Province of Quebec and some of the 

 eastern States, thence they gradually worked westward along the Great 

 Lakes to their proper habitation. — C. W. NASH. 



Observations on migration of Evening Grosbeaks, 1890.— On 

 the 2 1st, January, 1890, Messrs Gray, Marsh, and Mitchell, reported a 

 flock of about three-hundred Evening Grosbeaks, males and females, 

 on Rosedale Heights, north of C. P. Railway track, they were 

 feeding on the ground and seemed to find abundance of food. 

 The subsequent examinations of the stomachs determined the food 



