l/bl 3 V. 3 ^ W - Vi~. 
Feb. 6, 1890.] 
EVENING GROSBEAK IN NEW ENGLAND. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
The evening grosbeak ( Coccothraustes vespertina) has 
at length won a place in the fauna of New England by 
appealing during January. 1890, at several different 
localities in eastern Massachuse tts and southern New 
Hampshire. As far as I am able to learn it was seen first 
at Milford. New Hampshire , where Mr. James P. Melzer 
shot a female on January 6. This specimen, Mr. Melzer 
writes me, was apparently a solitary bird. It alighted on 
a tree in the village and attracted his attention by its 
peculiar notes. It seemed alert and and restless, but he 
succeeded in shooting it before it could again take wing. 
Three days later a young man brought in another which 
he said was one of a flock of eight or ten that he had seen 
near the town. Mr. Melzer was too busy at the time to 
j go in pursuit of them, but the young man went back and 
secured three more. Of the four taken this day one was 
an adult male and one a female. The sex of the other 
I two could not be determined by dissection, but they are j 
apparently females. These birds were feeding in maples 
and the “crops” of those killed were “filled with the soft J 
inner portions of the maple buds.” Milford is in Hills- 1 
borough county, eleven miles northwest of Nashua. 
On Jan. 9 — the very day, it will be observed, when these [ 
grosbeaks were last seen at Milford— a male was shot at 
Seabrook, Rockingham county, N. H . I heard of this 
specimen through Or. A. K. Fisher, who wrote me that 
it was in the possession of Mr. Alvah A. Eaton, of Sea- 
brook. The latter, in reply to a letter from me asking 
about his bird, at once sent me the skin, very generously 
insisting that I accept it as a gift for my collection. In 
addition, he was kind enough to furnish the following 
account of its capture: It was shot by a Mr. Brooks, who 
found it alone in an apple orchard about half a mile from 
a large salt marsh, but only a few hundred yards from an 
arm or cove of this marsh. The locality is within a mile 
of the Massachusetts line, and hence in the extreme south- 
eastern corner of Seabrook. Mr. Eaton skinned and dis- 
sected the bird. Its stomach contained nothing but 
cherry stones, all of which were broken into fragments. 
As there were no wild cherries in the region about Sea- 
brook last summer, Mr. Eaton thinks that these stones 
may have been those of cherries from trees cultivated in 
a garden near the apple orchard where the grosbeak was 
killed. The bird was badly torn by the shot, “which 
must have been of large size,” and as the skin was very 
tender also, the specimen is not so good as could be 
wished; but it is in remarkably fine, richly-colored plum- 
age. I cannot see that it differs in any important respect 
from several of the western males in my collection. 
Mr. Eaton tells me that it measured “a trifle over 8in. in 
length.” 
The next point at which our interesting bird has been 
reported to me is Wellesley. Norfolk county, Massachu - 
setts . where, on the well-known Hunnewell place, near 
the outskirts of the village, a specimen was shot Jan. 15 
by Mr. Thomas Smith, a gardener in Mr. Hunnewell’s 
service. Having a bent for natural history, Mr. Smith 
has made a small but interesting collection of such mam- 
mals, birds and insects as he has found time to capture 
and preserve. He shot the grosbeak in a maple, where it 
was sitting, apparently alone, uttering at intervals a call 
which resembles that of the pine grosbeak. By the aid 
of a copy of “Wilson’s Ornithology” lie identified it cor- 
rectly and mounted it. I am indebted to Mr. S. W. Den- 
ton for these facts, as well as for the specimen itself, 
which he obtained for me from Mr. Smith. Although 
the sex was not determined, the bird is evidently a female. 
It differs from all the western females in my collection 
in having the top and sides of the head deep, nearly pure 
ashy, instead of olivaceous brown. It is further peculiar 
in almost wholly lacking the usual blackish stripes on 
the sides of the throat. 
The last capture of which I have any present knowledge 
is that of a female, taken Jan. 25, at Lynn, Essex county , 
Massachusetts . It was killed by a young man who shoots 
for Mr. N. Vickary, the well known taxidermist, who 
says it was accompanied by another bird of apparently 
the same species and sex, which, at the report of the gun, 
rose high in air and made off, uttering as it flew a loud 
whistling call and occasionally a chattering cry also. 
When first seen they were sitting close together in the 
top of a red cedar, feeding on the berries. The gullet of 
the one killed proved to be full of the berries of this 
cedar. Mr. Vickary mounted the specimen, which will 
probably go to the Peabody Academy at Salem for the 
Essex county collection. I have examined this bird and 
find that it differs from my Wellesley specimen only in 
having the head of a slightly browner shade and the dark 
spots on the sides of the throat a little more distinct. 
The evening grosbeak has occurred in New York, in 
Onondaga county (Coues, Bull. Nutt. Orn. Club, VII., 
1882, 250), near New York city (Lawrence, Ann. Lyc. 
Nat. Hist., N. Y., VIII., 1866, 289) and at Elizabethtown, 
Essex county (Brewer, Proc. Bos. Soc. Nat. Hist., XVII., 
1875, 451), only ten miles west of Lake Champlain. 
Although several writers have confidently predicted its 
appearance in New England, the birds just mentioned 
are the first that have ever been reported. The fact that 
so many have been seen within less than three weeks and 
at places some distance apart makes it highly probable 
that they have crossed our borders in considerable num- 
bers, and it will be surprising if more are not found be- 
fore the winter is over. It would be interesting to know 
if the recent heavy snowfalls in the Northwest have had 
anything to do with their coming. Wi, Brewster. 
Cambridge, Mass. 
