A Day After Pine Grosbeaks. 
As I was driving through the mountains the 
latter part of February, I came across a flock of 
Pine Grosbeaks in some heavy spruce woods, the 
first I have seen here in two years. Not having 
any gun with me at the time, I decided on the 
first pleasant day to return on a collecting trip. 
So on March 4th I drove over. The day 
was warm and bright, and birds were more ac- 
tive and plentiful than on any previous day 
this winter. Black-capped Chickadees were 
very common, and the crows that stay here 
the year round had received some noisy rein- 
forcements from the South. I started up a few 
Ruffed Grouse, and occasionally saw, on a 
stump or dead tree, a Hairy or Downy Wood- 
pecker, or a White-bellied Nuthatch, while from 
the top of a dead pine I secured a handsome 
specimen of the Great Northern Shrike, but the 
birds I came after were minus. The walking 
was very fatiguing, there being two feet of 
snow on the ground, and although I searched 
the woods over carefully, I did not see a single 
Pine Grosbeak. As I was returning home dis- 
couraged and thinking what a wild goose chase 
it was to come so far and expect to find the 
Grosbeaks in the same woods, I saw a small 
flock in an orchard, feeding on the seeds of 
frozen apples. They were very still and un- 
less a sharp lookout was kept one would be 
apt to pass them by unnoticed. The birds 
when alarmed would utter a faint whistle and 
fly into some evergreen woods where it was 
impossible to find them, as they w r ould conceal 
themselves in the densest part of a tree, close to 
the main stem. After a little while they would 
venture out again to feed, and the snow be- 
neath the trees was covered with pulp from 
the apples opened by their powerful bills. I 
was fortunate in securing two handsome males 
and three females. A. H. B. Jordan. 
May. 1889 p. 74-75 
