SPRINGFIELD, SATURDAY, FEB. 6, 1904. 
i^Fhe pine grosbeak, a northern bird, whiefs. 
faring the colder months,, in occasional 
"years, comes down as'far' south as this 
latitude, and whose presence in small num- 
bers in the suburbs. of Springfield has been 
noted since October, has within the last few 
days appeared in the center of the city. This 
is a bird about the size of a robin and re- 
sembling it: somewhat in coloring and ac- 
tion. One can always know that it is a 
grosbeak year by the numerous items pub- 
lished in the newspapers during the winter 
months mentioning the occurrence of robins 
in different places. A Westfield man makes 
the claim that there are several robins in 
a marsh between that town and this city, 
who have been there all winter, notwith- 
standing the severity of the weather. 
THE SPRINGFIELD UNION 
♦— 
ESTABLISHED JANUARY 4, 1804. 
TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION: Morning or 
Evening Union, $6.00 per year; Sunday 
Union, $2.50 per year. 
Tuesday, February 16, 1904. 
TWO C0L«F0P 
GROSBEAKS HERE 
VISIT ATTRACTS MUCH AT- 
TENTION. 
Twenty-Eight Years Ago Birds 
Swarmed in Springfield and 
Some Were Snared. 
Pine grosbeaks, rare visitor from the 
woods of the farther North, have 
swarmed down upon Springfield this 
Winter for the first time in a half 
dozen years and, with a boldness sel- 
dom seen, have ventured into the heart 
of the city itself. Bird lovers have 
braved the cold and snows with eager- 
ness to see the visitors. Since the mid- 
dle of January, a colony of the birds 
has made its headquarters in the pines 
of the Springfield cemetery and another 
colony is reported from the pines along 
the Boston road. 
The birds are large, almost the size 
of a robin and, in full plumage, of a 
warm red on back and breast. In the 
young males and the females, the red 
of the back is dull, almost brown, thus 
hightening the resemblance to the robin 
I and these birds might easily be mis- 
! taken for each other by the casual ob- 
! server. 
I The appearance this season of the 
! pine grosbeak in large numbers, has 
! attracted a great deal more attention 
than has any of their former visits, 
.which shows how much more popular 
interest there is in bird life than for- 
merly. 
These boreal visitors come down to 
us from the North, on an average, once 
in six years, perhaps one time in their 
; generation. At the period of their 
i greatest visitation here, during the 
memory of man, which was in 1875, they 
swarmed into the very center of Spring- 
field, and for a number of weeks the 
city was alive with them. At that 
time a person could hardly look out 
of a window without observing a flock 
; of grosbeaks. Many of them, at that 
i time, were snared and kept in confine- 
! ment, which Condition of life did not 
■ disturb them, for they soon were tame 
and the males became good singers. A 
number of them were exhibited at a 
great poultry and pet stock show, 
which was held at the City hall the 
following Winter. At one place, where 
a female was caught and kept in cap- 
tivity, two successive years at the 
breeding time, she built a nest and de- 
posited a set of eggs, but she would 
not permit a male of her kind to enter 
/Tier cage. \V>> 
/ About 10 years ago we had a grosV. 
beak season, when William Brewster oft 
Cambridge, probably the best informed! 
ornithologist in New Bpgland, made anl 
exhaustive study of the migration and] 
habits of these birds. He sent out , 
numerous circulars to people all over- 
the Eastern States: seeking informa- 
tion relative to the dates of appear- 
ance and departure of the grtosbeakSi 
expecting to ascertain the path of their 
migration and- facts about their food 
and habits. He concluded that their 
movements were governed by the 
abundance or absence of food, that 
they would remain in any locality when 
daily fed with hemp seed. He also 
found that in their, wild state, they 
would occasionally indulge in harmless 
squabbles, but in the main they were 
unmistakably gentle and amiable in diss-1 
position, social and affectionate in theiri 
(relation to their own kind, and in their 
^attitude toward man, almost wholly 
tree from fear or even suspicion. . I 
An Unusual Occurrence of the Pine Grosbeak in Rhode Island. 
Visitations of the Pine Grosbeak ( Pinicola enucleator leucura) into southern 
New England and the Middle Atlantic States have been probably more 
widespread during the past winter than at any other time since the severely 
cold season of 1903-04. In view of this fact the remarkably late north- 
ward flight of a flock of Grosbeaks observed at Providence, R. I., may be 
of special interest. Early in the morning of April 28, 1911, I saw fourteen 
Pine Grosbeaks on Neutaconkanut. Hill, Providence. Several were sitting 
in a large oak tree over a swamp, and others on the bare, highest branches 
of saplings nearby. The birds allowed me to approach very near, and, 
while I looked on, four of them flew to the wet, springy ground below in 
order to drink. This was within thirty feet of where I stood. Six or seven 
of the members of the flock were males in the red plumage. 
So far as records inform, April 28 is an unusual if not an unprecedented 
date for Pine Grosbeaks in this latitude. In southern New England they 
have generally been observed to linger no later than March, and April 
10 is given as a normal date of last occurrence in Manitoba. Robert 
Cushman Murphy, Browg U^yer&ti^Proyidmce, 
SO 
