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Volume VI No vember-December, 1904- Number C) 
The Black- headed Grosbeak 
( Za HI clod la vi e/auocep/ia/a ) 
KV WILLIAM L(>\’I';LL I'TNI.KY 
ILI.rSTRATKI) IIV HKKMAN T. HOHI.MAN 
SHALT^ always remember the black-headed grosbeak because it is one 
of the birds of my childhood. As long ago as I can remember, I 
watched for him in the mulberry trees and about 
the elderberry bushes when the fruit was ripe. I 
distinguished him from all others by his high- 
pitched, “quit! quit!’’ long before I knew' his name. 
He is a common resident of California. When I 
came to Oregon, it was some time before I found 
him. Here he seldom if ever comes about the 
city, but he likes a ([uiet nook out in the hills, a 
place where the maples and alders form a thicket 
in the creek bottom. 
For several years we have watched a pair of 
grosbeaks that spent their summer in a little 
thicket along Fulton Creek. I have no doubt the 
same pair has returned to the old nesting place for the last three or four A'ears. It 
seems I can almost recognize the notes of their song. If our ears were only tuned 
to the music of the birds could we not recognize them as we recognize our old 
friends? 
Last year I found three spotted eggs in a loosely-made nest that was placed 
in the dog-wood. This year the site was scarcely twenty feet from the old home. 
They came nearer the ground and placed the thin frame-work of their home be- 
