The Blue Grosbeaks 



a "process," may have evolved in a century, or its development may have 

 required a hundred thousand years. If we wish to appraise the actual or 

 significant degree of difference between one species and another, we must 

 weigh a multitude of outside, or non-somatic, factors. Very little may 

 happen to a bone or an artery or a muscle in a millenium, but a great deal 

 may happen to a species in that length of time. For this reason, there- 

 fore, the pronouncements of anatomists, however rigid and authoritative 

 within their realm, are never complete. They are true, but they are only 

 part of the truth. 



Take, for example, the case of the Blue Grosbeak {Guiraca ccerulea). 

 Its beak is "gross" enough. Its anatomical characters, so far as they 

 have been determined, may ally it closely with the genus Hedymeles. I 

 do not know. But in its associational habits, in its behavior, in its song, 

 and, above all, in its nesting, the Blue Grosbeak much more closely 

 resembles the Blue Buntings (Genus Cyanospiza or Passerina). There 

 are, to be sure, distant resemblances between Guiraca and Hedymeles. 

 Guiraca belongs between Hedymeles and Passerina; but if we called him 

 Great Blue Bunting instead of "Grosbeak," we should come nearer to 

 expressing the facts. 



The Blue Grosbeak is never exactly prominent save during migra- 

 tions, and then only, as it were, casually. Not knowing precisely the lie 

 of the land through which he is passing, the bird is at less pains to conceal 

 himself, and moves about rather sluggishly — along fences or telephone 

 wires or other exposed places. But when his summer station is found — a 

 willow-lined stream, a brushy patch adjoining a swamp, or even a moist 

 fallow field — discretion is backed by knowledge of leafy mazes, and escape 

 is easy. Like the Lazuli Bunting, however, the Blue Grosbeak chooses a 

 rather prominent station for song — a tall weed, a wayside fence-post, or 

 a tree-top. The song is sprightly and exuberant, but not well sustained. 

 It is a musical outburst with, sometimes, a wild, fresh quality, but it 

 oftener trails off into a jumble, like the remoter lispings of Passerina. 

 Exceptional singers do recall the rounder, mellower notes of Hedymeles; 

 and the offerings are so varied, so individual, that one cannot dogmatize. 

 Some, not altogether amiss, have compared this song to the burbling of the 

 House Finch. There should be no mistaking of qualities, but the gushing 

 fashion of utterance is similar enough. The Grosbeak, however, is not an 

 indefatigable singer, and too much or too close an attention to his efforts 

 will send him charging behind the leafy screen. 



The lady Grosbeak is not much in evidence at singing time. Pre- 

 sumably the suitor knows her approximate whereabouts in the shrubbery; 

 but let her once show her head, and he is after her like a Kansas cyclone. 

 It is a wonder, surely, that more lovers are not dashed to pieces in their 



4*5 



