72 
Coues’s History of the Evening Grosbeak. 
“ strangely ejaculatory as well as harshly piping,” and thus scarcely 
to be considered musical ; still, the birds seemed to be fond of such 
performances, and occupied much of their leisure in practising both 
as soloists and as choristers. The writer adds that his female spe- 
cimens usually showed whitish edgings of the inner webs of the tail- 
feathers, apparently overlooked by some of our standard authorities. 
Dr. J. G. Cooper has recorded the Evening Grosbeak as a com- 
mon resident of the forests of Washington Territory, where the 
bird’s habit of keeping in the summits of the tall trees screened him 
to a degree from observation. In January, 1854, he obtained sev- 
eral specimens from a flock that had descended during a snow-storm 
to some bushes about Vancouver; and he subsequently observed it 
flying high among poplar-trees, or feeding upon the seeds, and 
littering a loud, shrill call-note. In later years he was enabled to 
make further observations in various portions of California. Thus, 
he speaks of one flock of about a dozen individuals which wintered 
near Santa Cruz, remaining until the end of April. “ Their favorite 
resort was a small grove of alders and willows, close to the town, 
where their loud call-note could be heard at all hours of the dav, 
though I never heard them sing. When the herbage began to grow 
in spring, their favorite food was the young leaves of various annual 
weeds that sprouted up under the shade of the trees. They then 
fed on the buds of the ‘ box-elder ’ ( Negundo ), and frequented the 
large pear-trees in the old mission garden, probably to eat their huds. 
They were generally very tame, allowing an approach to within a 
few yards of them when feeding.” 
The annual movements of the Evening Grosbeak within the area 
of its usual dispersion have not been well determined. It is a 
migratory bird in one sense, but does not appear to be subjected 
to the impulse of migration with periodical regularity, as a strict 
and proper migrant should be. It is certainly able to endure a 
very rigorous climate, for its presence during the most inclement 
weather of winter along our Northern border, and even in British 
America, is sufficiently attested Thus it appears, from Captain 
Blakiston’s article in the “ Ibis,” that the Evening Grosbeak occurs 
in the inhospitable region of the Saskatchewan between the months 
of November and April, when birds of this kind were seen feeding 
on the ash-leaved maples in company with the very boreal Pine 
Grosbeaks. Mr. Tiffany’s note, already quoted, shows that they 
endure a Minnesota winter, which is not a thing to be lightly dis- 
