May, 1922 NOTES ON THE AMERICAN PINE GROSBEAKS 87 
ventral region “mouse gray’, lower tail coverts the same edged with paler. White bars 
on wings very restricted, the centers of all the wing and tail feathers ‘“fuscous black’. 
Wing 108, tail 82, culmen 13.5, depth of bill at base 10.5, width of mandible 9, tarsus 
20.5. [Colors in quotation marks from Ridgway’s Color Standards and Color Nomen- 
clature, 1912.] 
It will be seen that while the bill in carlottac is proportionately large and 
strongly hooked, it is not nearly up to the dimensions of that of flammula as 
given by Ridgway. Probably the Queen Charlotte bird more closely approaches 
true enucleator from western Europe than any of the American subspecies. 
In conjunction with the foregoing descriptions I have carefully gone over 
my entire series of pine grosbeaks, some thirty in all not counting these very 
distinct Queen Charlotte birds. The result makes me hope that someone with 
plenty of material at his disposal will review the group. 
Ali the specimens that I have sent back to Washington have been identi- 
fied by Dr. Oberholser as montana. These include winter specimens from the 
interior of British Columbia and one breeding bird from the coastal slope of the 
Caseades (international boundary). The former I took for alascensis; they 
seemed to agree with specimens from the Cariboo district (central British 
Columbia), identified by the late William Brewster as such. 
This winter (1921-’22) we have had in the southern interior of British 
Columbia an invasion of very large, purely colored birds, the grays as pale as, 
or paler than, in eastern Canadian leucura, the rose-pink of the males some- 
times covering the greater portion of the lower surface. These must be alas- 
censis, as the bill proportions agree with Ridgway’s description. But Ridg- 
way, the describer of both alascensis and montana, indicates by the measure- 
ments he gives that the latter is the larger of the two, not only in the bill but 
in average dimensions. The breeding birds that we get in southern British 
Columbia are very much smaller than these winter birds, nor is the bill longer 
or larger in any way. 
A small series of winter taken birds from Edmonton, Alberta, agree ex- 
actly with these large winter birds from British Columbia. Neither series is 
very different from eastern (Ontario) birds. The westerners are a little larger. 
perhaps, but the Ontario birds seem to suggest the inclusion of two different 
types. One lot is larger with heavier and more strongly hooked bill, and the 
red males are more purplish and with dark centers to the feathers of breast. 
The other eastern form, the commoner, is smaller, more pink, the colors more 
uniform, and the bill smaller and less hooked. 
The red males of Pinicola T regard as birds of the year, and I doubt if the 
red plumage is held for more than one year. The succeeding plumage may be 
the reddish one figured as the immature male in Bird-Lore (vol. 14, 1912, no. 
6). This plumage, where the yellows on head and rump are replaced by dull 
red, is common to both sexes and is only occasionally seen. A still rarer type 
of plumage in the male is where the rose-red is replaced by salmon-pink, prob- 
ably a freak like the yellow types of Carpodacus. 
The proportion of red males in Pinicola is much smaller than in Loria or 
Carpodacus and is probably not more than one in three of breeding birds. The 
proportion of red males in collections may be higher, but this is obviously due 
to the fact that collectors will take a red male in preference to a eray bird in 
nearly all cases. One will often see a flock of a dozen or more birds without 
