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:fVQm 1Ia 8 t ern Mass, M,A, Frazar. 
The most notable occurrence of the season, however, 
was the remarkable flight of evening grosbeaks which 
took place. The first to come , V our notice were the 
three birds noted by Mr. Brewster in the Forest and 
Stream of Feb. 27. The next were three fine males 
taken at Ayer Junction, Mass., on Feb. 20. They were 
killed from a flock of about seventy-five that had been 
hanging about the center of the town for a number of 
days. The little chap who killed these called the flock 
down on to the ground in his yard like sparrows by 
throwing canary seed for them to eat, and getting within 
15ft. of the flock killed the three with his spring gun, 
shooting a few pellets of B shot. 
On Feb. 25 a correspondent, F. W. Deering, of Tops- 
field, Mass., killed two males that were feeding alone be- 
neath some maple trees, and he also mentioned a friend 
of his killing two others out of aflook of eight, about two 
weeks previously. 
On March 10 a male and female, killed at Reading, 
Mass., that morning, were brought in; they were alone 
and were feeding upon maple seeds. Upon our writing 
at once to the party who sent them in to be on the watch 
for more, we received another pair from him the next 
day, killed at the same place and under the same circum- 
stances. 
On March 15 a female taken at Melrose was brought in, 
and it was the last specimen of its species that we have 
heard of from this vicinity. Our friend Arthur Smith 
recently mounted one that was killed in West Newton, 
Mass. , during February, and besides the above specimens 
that were captured, we have reliable accounts from at 
least a half dozen more that were seen by careful ob- 
servers. Considering that it is a bird which would be 
easily overlooked, and coming as they did at a season of 
the year when comparatively few gunners are about, it 
is probably no exaggeration to say that eastern Mass- 
achusetts must have been visited by thousands of indi- 
viduals, Besides the above we have received a nice male 
and female taken by a correspondent at Heath, Ulster 
county, N. Y., who writes that he has taken nine others 
and seen quite a number besides. The stomachs of all ! 
the birds we dissected contained maple seeds, excepting 
of course the three that were being baited with canary 
seed. 
For, & Stem, April 24, I8C0. p.208 
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Coccothraustes vespertina in Taunton, Massachusetts. — On March S, 
1890, as I was walking out of my door I heard the notes of a bird strange 
to me but which at first I took to be those of the Pine Grosbeak. 
Getting my gun and coming out into the yard I found three Evening 
Grosbeaks feeding on the buds of a maple tree. In the course of a few 
minutes I had two fine males and a female laid out on my skinning table. 
This is I think the first record for Bristol County. — A. C. Bent, Taun- 
ton . 1 Mass. Aliki YU. July, 1890, p, A 
Vot. 'it/. /fc*7 1887. Evening Grosbeak in Massachusetts. 
By E. H. Forbush. /iJ?. or » & Stt©aSl« 
2 / 
