The Rose-breasted Grosbeak 



General Range. — Chiefly eastern North America, breeding north to Nova 

 Scotia and Ontario, Manitoba, and west to eastern Kansas or, rarely, eastern Colorado 

 and Alberta (Lesser Slave Lake — Spreadborough) and "sporadically " in northern Cali- 

 fornia; south in winter over the Bahamas and throughout Mexico and Central America 

 to Ecuador. 



Occurrence in California. — Taken in California, evidently breeding (see 

 account below), in Humboldt County. Also immature male taken Sept. 10, 1897, 

 by M. F. Gilman, at Palm Springs. 



Authorities. — McLain, Auk, vol. xv., 1898, p. 190 (Myer's, Humboldt Co.). 

 Grinnell, Pac. Coast Avifauna, no. 3, 1902, p. 59 (Palm Springs); McAtee, U. S. Dept, 

 Agric, Biol. Surv. Bull., no. 32, 1908, p. 33, col. pi. (food); Fry, U. S. Dept. Interior 

 General Information Regarding Sequoia and General Grant National Parks, Season 

 of 1912, p. 14; Cooke, U. S. Dept. Agric. Bull., no. 185, 1915, pp. 24, 30, map (migration 

 route and distribution) ; Gilbert, Condor, vol. xviii., 1916, p. 81; Allen, Auk, vol. xxxiii., 

 1916, p. 53 (nesting habits, in Mass.). 



NO MORE remarkable instance of the sporadic, or rather, eruptive, 

 occurrence of a species is on record than that furnished by the Rose- 

 breasted Grosbeak, which was encountered in numbers on July 1st, 1897, 

 by a party of Stanford students in charge of Professor C. H. Gilbert. The 

 birds were quartered somewhere on the Nyer Ranch, in Humboldt County, 

 and they were being shot because of their persistent depredations in the 

 orchard. From the meager accounts given 1 we infer that the birds must 

 have bred in the vicinity. Inasmuch as there is no other record of the 

 breeding of this species west of the Great Plains States, we must suppose 

 that a detachment of migrant Grosbeaks faring northward from Colombia 

 in the spring of 1897 was deflected sharply to the westward, and finding 

 itself at last in suitable, though unfamiliar, territory, it made the best of 

 circumstances, both nest-wise and cherry-wise. 



There is only one other specific record of the occurrence of this species 

 in the State, Palm Springs, Riverside County, September 10, 1897, by 

 M. F. Gilman; and it is significant that this was made during the same 

 year as the great experiment recorded above. Quite possibly, then, this 

 bird was a returning member of the Humboldt County colony feeling its 

 way southward. 



Of course lightning sometimes strikes twice in the same place, but 

 until it does, and so that we may become acquainted with the bird at first 

 hand, we will content ourselves with a paragraph from the author's 

 "Birds of Ohio." 



"During migrations this Grosbeak often keeps to the highest tree- 

 tops, where his bright colors almost escape notice amidst the newly 



■Auk, Vol. XV., April, 1898, p. 190, and Condor, Vol. XVIII., March ,1916, p. 81. 

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