General Notes. 
93 
1S90.] 
Notes upon Coccothraustes vespertina as a Cagebird. — In ‘The Auk’ 
for January, 1889, I presented a few notes having reference to the sudden 
appearance, at Fort Wingate, New Mexico, of the Evening Grosbeak in 
considerable numbers. The migration to which my remarks referred oc- 
cured in October and November, 1888, and I went on to say how fortu- 
nate I was upon that occasion in collecting quite a number of those 
beautiful birds. As the flocks became larger and more numerous I would 
m firing into them with the fine dust shot I was using, often wound 
several individuals, but these were despatched in the usual way and 
either skins or skeletons made up from the specimens. Later, however 
the thought struck me that it would be a good thing to try and save some 
of these slightly wounded ones with the view of making cage pets of them 
and as luck would have it the very same afternoon I came upon a flock 
numbering considerably over a hundred. They were resting in an old 
leafless piflon tree, and in the midst of the flock sat a stately male whose' 
olive green coat was nearly black, it was so dark, and the white of his 
wings was dazzling in contrast, it was so very white. At the double re- 
port of my gun a dozen or fifteen came tumbling down through the tree 
and fell upon the spotless, drifted snow beneath it such beauties! 
Among them, with his jet-black wings and tail spread out upon this 
powdery frozen carpet, lay the fine old patriarch of the flock, for I had 
made him the target of my first barrel. After all these specimens 
had been cared for, each placed with the due precautions in its separate 
paper cone, there was discovered sitting on a side-twig of another scrubby 
pine, near by, a fine female, that had evidently sustained some wounds, 
bpon capturing her these were found to consist in a broken wing and leg 
and an oblique shot through the corner of the eye, but red-eyed and 
fractured as she was, I determined to take her home in her then condition 
and see what good nursing would do towards repairing her numerous 
inju ries. 
To shorten this part of my account, I will only add that in due time she 
made a most excellent recovery, and long before that came about she had 
become wonderfully gentle, and allowed me to handle her without 
biting me with her powerful beak, as she would do for a week or more 
just after her capture. She was kept upon a pine bough in the deep re 
cess of a window in my study, and fed every day upon fresh cedar berries 
ol which these birds are inordinately fond, and with which she would 
gorge herself as fast as she could see to pick them from the branches by the 
aid ol her single good eye, and her crippled limbs to get about among the 
twigs with. Shortly her eye was much improved, and she would whistle 
shrilly as soon as she caught sight of me coming towards her with a fresh 
branch loaded with her favorite food. In eating the berries the outside 
skin and soft part are rapidly removed by rolling them deftly around 
between the powerful mandibles, when the seed is quickly swallowed 
and the bird ducks over and picks a fresh one to extract the seed in 
the same manner, and this she would keep up until her alimentary canal 
seemed almost ready to burst with the unnatural distention. Sometime 
