190 THE OREGON SPORTSMAN 
THE BLACK-HEADED GROSBEAK 
By WILLIAM L. FINLEY 
NE day I stopped to look for a bird that was caroling in one 
© of the maples. I saw the grosbeak mother singing her lullaby 
as she sat on her eggs. It looked to me so like a human 
mother’s love. Few birds sing in the home. However much they 
wish to, they are afraid. As John Burroughs says, it is a very rare 
occurrence for a bird to sing while on its nest. But several times I 

Male Black-Headed Grosbeak and Young 
have heard the black-headed grosbeak do it. How the grosbeak 
took up such a custom, I do not know, for birds in general are very 
shy lest they attract attention to the nest. 
In the grosbeak family, the Cardinal or Redbird is perhaps more 
familiar, since he is often seen ‘behind the bars of a cage. The rose- 
breasted grosbeak is the bird of the Eastern states, while the black- 
headed. grosbeak is of the West. He may be found anywhere from 
Eastern Nebraska to California and from British Columbia south to 
the plateau of Mexico. 
I have watched a good many bird families, but I never saw the 
work divided as it seemed to be in the grosbeak household. The 
first day I stayed about the nest, I noticed that the father was 
feeding the children almost entirely and whenever he brought a 
mouthful, he hardly knew which one to feed first. The mother fed 
about once an hour, while he fed every ten or fifteen minutes. This 
seemed rather contrary to my understanding of bird ways. Generally 
the male is wilder than his wife and she has to take the respon- 
sibility of the home. 
The next day I watched at the nest, conditions were the same, 
but I was surprised to see that parental duties were just reversed. 
The mother was going and coming continually with food, while the 
father sat about in the tree-tops, sang and preened his feathers leis- 
urely, only taking the trouble to hunt up one mouthful for his bairns 
to every sixth or seventh the mother brought. 
To my surprise, the third day I found the father was the busy 
