May, 191,1 
THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN PINE GROSBEAK IN UTAH 
107 
there but a moment it dropped to a bare spot nearby, flew liack up to the stable 
roof, then away to some large aspens, carrying in its bill a small twig. That this 
bird was a female Pine Grosbeak I felt sure, although the distance was too great 
to be positive. Not allowing my eyes to wander from her, I reached for my 
binoculars as she hopped from branch to branch with that careless unconcern, in 
which art these birds are quite proheient. Presently she flew up the mountain 
side to a large, lone flr standing in a body of small aspens, and I raised my glass- 
es just in time to see that she had alighted within a foot or so of what seemed to 
be an already well-formed nest. After placing; her material, she returned to the 
stable, then dropped to the bare spot in search of more nest material, as before, 
continuing to and from her nest in this manner for more than an hour. Then to 
make myself doubly certain, I made my way up the mountain, and upon climbing 
the tree, found a nest whose lining was i)artially completed. The nest was situat- 
ed in a rather heavy clump of boughs, fourteen feet out on a horizontal branch, 
and some twenty-five feet 
from the ground. The fe- 
male was not at the nest at 
the time I commenced to 
climb the tree, but presently 
returned, alighting within two 
feet of me, to immediately fly 
away again, and was seen no 
more this day. 
June 24. — Iowa Co]t])er 
jNJine. — Today while watching 
a pair of Gray-headed Juncos 
nest-building, some two hun- 
dred yards belotv the cabin 
where on June 21 1 found the 
female Grosbeak gathering- 
nest material, 1 heard, calling 
at regular intervals, a male 
Grosbeak : but no bird had 
yet been seen, although I had 
looked carefully. Suddenly 
I realized that something H.vbitat of the Rocky Mountain Pine 
II , ■ . g Grosbeak, IN THE Wasatch Mountains, Utah 
had crossed my vision, and 
my eyes instantly rested on a female Grosbeak sitting on a braneb of a dead as- 
pen. Apparently it was their trysting place, for almost at the same moment, the 
male appeared from somewhere alighting on the same branch some eight feet 
from the female who squatted with outspread wings and tail, in much the manner of 
young but fledged birds when being fed l^y their parents, lloth birds commenced 
and kept up a continual twitter, the male strutting to and fro on the branch, each 
time drawing a little nearer to the female, and the while making obeisance, bow- 
ing the head as low as the feet, and displaying his colors with much grace, until 
they finally met. The female had not moved since alighting, other than the con- 
tinued trembling of spread tail and fluttering wings. The male then rubbed his 
head and neck against the head and neck of the female, several times up and 
down, then suddenly with oiien beak she raised her head, the male seizing her by 
the beak, the two commenced tugging and jmlling at each other. The stroking 
of necks and tugging of open bill of female was gone through with three times. 
