FINCHES, SPARROWS, ETC.: EVENING GROSBEAK 685 
Evening Grosbeaks, whether the Western or the Rocky Mountain form to be 
determined by specimens, remain throughout the winter in the mountains of the 
northern part of the State, and descend at this season at least to Fort Wingate 
(Shufeldt); Big Rocky Creek in the Gila National Forest (Birdseye); to the Gila 
River near the Arizona line (Stephens, in Allen, 1879, p. 237); Fort Webster (Henry); 
Silver City (Hunn); and Fort Thorn (Henry). [A specimen was taken, December 
16, 1919, from a flock of four found 25 miles northwest of Silver City. A flock of 
12 was seen December 21, 1922, in Silver City, and 100 on.February 27, 1923 (Kel¬ 
logg). Flocks of various numbers were seen almost daily until May 9, 1923, in 
different parts of town.] 
Nest. —(As described by Willard) 35-95 feet from the ground in pine or fir, 
near the end of a horizontal branch lightly made of twigs, fined with rootlets, and 
sometimes grass and finer materials. Eggs: 3 to 4, green, blotched with pale brown. 
Food. —Largely wild fruit, as wild cherry, dogwood, snowbcrry, and service- 
berry, and seeds of shrubs and trees as mountain ash, chokecherry, mistletoe, 
juniper, alder, box elder, ash, maple, and seeds from the cones of various conifers; 
also small insects, mainly injurious leaf-eaters, chiefly beetles and hairless cater¬ 
pillars; but also small wasps, ants, bugs, and spiders. 
General Habits. —When the field worker is traveling through the 
mountains, the rare Rocky Mountain Evening Grosbeaks are usually 
seen in small wandering flocks in the tree tops so high overhead that 
strong field glasses are needed to make out the details of their olive 
and yellowish green plumage with its enriching black and white trim¬ 
mings. In various parts of northern New Mexico, late in August and 
in September, such small wandering flocks have passed over our camps 
in the yellow pines, the rare quality of their wild, whistled calls identi¬ 
fying them before they disappeared. But at 8,000 feet on the Pecos 
River we were fortunate enough to find flocks feeding on the ground 
around roadside springs so delightfully tame that we could come 
within five or six feet of them. They stayed about for a week and 
appeared to be eating small insects, which they picked from the surface 
of the ground or dug up from under roots or stones. Only two females 
were noted among twenty or thirty males. Four miles above, at 
Willis, two years previous, Mr. Birtwell found the breeding colony 
described in his published notes. One of the hungry brooding females, 
he said, when her mate was singing near by, “with curious, soliciting 
cries and fluttering wings like a great overgrown nestling . . . 
followed him about and by the patient bird was regularly fed” (1901a, 
p. 389). 
In the Huachuca Mountains in Arizona, where Mr. Willard found 
the Grosbeaks building and brooding, he says the powerful beak made 
the breaking of twigs for the nest seem easy. And when busy feeding, 
the birds would walk along the branches from cone to cone skillfully 
extracting the seeds with their great bills. 
In Monument Park west of Chloride, where Mr. Ligon found several 
pairs of the interesting birds, apparently mated in April “their peculiar 
