April 27, 1907.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
651 
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The Grosbeaks’ Family. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
For several years we have watched a pair of 
grosbeaks that spend their summers 011 the hill¬ 
side in a little thicket. The same pair, no doubt, 
has returned to the thicket for at least three or 
four years. It seems I can almost recognize the 
notes of their song. If our ears were only tuned 
to the music of the birds, could we not recog¬ 
nize them as individuals as we recognize our 
old friends?' 
In the grosbeak family the cardinal or redbird 
is perhaps more familiar to us, since he is often 
seen behind the bars of a cage. But his colors 
fade in confinement, and he is no longer the 
brilliant bird of the wild that seems to have 
strayed up from the tropics. But even if the 
beauty of this bird should not survive we have 
two other grosbeaks, the rose-breasted of the 
Eastern States, and the black-headed of the 
West, both alike in character and habits. 
The black-headed grosbeak (Zamclodia melano- 
cephala ) is one of the birds of my childhood. As 
long as I can remember I watched for him in 
the mulberry trees and about the elderberry 
bushes when the fruit was ripe. I could tell him 
from the other birds by his high-keyed call-note 
long before I knew his name. One day when I 
stopped to look for a bird that was caroling 
in one of the maples along the creek, I saw the 
grosbeak mother singing her lullaby as she sat 
on her eggs. It looked to me so like a human 
mother’s love. Few if any other birds sing in 
the home; they may often long to but are afraid. 
As John Burroughs says, it is a very rare oc¬ 
currence for a bird to sing on its nest, but sev¬ 
eral times I have heard the grosbeak do it. 
How it came to be a custom of the grosbeak I 
do not know, for birds in general are very shy 
about appearing near the nest or attracting at¬ 
tention to it. 
Last year I found three spotted eggs in a 
nest loosely built among the leaves of the dog¬ 
wood limbs. When I had seen the male carry¬ 
ing a stick in his mouth he dropped it and 
looked as uneasy as a boy who had just been 
caught with his pockets full of stolen apples. 
This year the nest was twenty feet down the 
NEST AND EGGS OF BLACK-HEADED GROSBEAK. 
Photograph by H. T. Bohlman. 
hill from the old home. They came nearer the 
ground and placed the framework of their nest 
between the two upright forks of an arrowwood 
bush. We had never bothered them very much 
with the camera, but when they put their home 
right down within four an a half feet of the 
ground it looked to me as if they wanted the?r 
pictures taken. It was too good a chance for 
us to miss. The ferns grew almost as high as 
the nest, and it was such a fine place to hide 
the camera to focus it. 
When I waded through the ferns and pushed 
aside the bushes the. nest was brimful. Above 
the rim I could see the tiny plumes of white 
down wavering in a breath of air I could not 
feel. I stole up and looked in. The three bant¬ 
lings were sound asleep. Neither parent hap¬ 
pened to be near, so I crawled back and hid well 
down in the bushes twelve feet away. The male 
came in as silently as a shadow and rested on 
the nest edge. He was dressed like a prince, 
with a jet black cap, black wings crossed with 
bars of white, and the rich red-brown of his 
breast shading into lemon-yellow toward his tail. 
He crammed something in each wide-opened 
mouth, stretched at the end of a wiggling, quiver¬ 
ing neck. The mother followed without a word 
and sat looking about. She treated each bob¬ 
bing head in the same way. Then with head 
cocked on one side she examined each baby, 
turning him gently with her bill, and looked 
carefully to the needs of all three before depart¬ 
ing. 
The male stayed near the nest. When I arose 
and stood beside the arrowwood he was scared. 
“Quit! quit!” he cried, in a high, frightened 
tone, and when I did not he let out a screech 
of alarm that brought his mate in a hurry. She 
was followed by a pair or robins, a yellow warb¬ 
ler and a flycatcher, all anxious to take a hand 
in the owl-ousting, if indeed an owl was near. 
I have often noticed that all the feathered neigh¬ 
bors of a locality will flock at such a cry of 
alarm. The robins are always the loudest and 
noisiest in their threats, and are the first to 
respond to a bird emergency call. 
The weather was warm and it seemed to me 
the young grosbeaks grew almost fast enough 
to rival a toadstool. Sunshine makes a big dif¬ 
ference. These little fellows got plenty to eat 
and were where the sun filtered through the 
leaves and kept them warm. The young thrushes 
across the gully were in a dark spot. They got 
as much food, but they rarely got a glint of the 
sun. They did not grow as much in a week 
as the grosbeak babies did in three days. 
I loved to sit and watch the brilliant male. 
He perched at the very top of the fir and 
stretched his wings till I could see their lemon 
lining. He preened his black tail to show the 
hidden spots of white. Of course, he knew his 
clothes were made for show. It was the song 
of motion just to see him drop from the fir to 
the bushes below. What roundelays lie whistled: 
“Whit-te-o ! Whit-te-o ! Reet!” Early in the 
morning he showed the quality of his singing. 
Later in the day it often lost finish. The notes 
sounded hard to get out, or as if he were prac¬ 
ticing; just running over the keys of an air 
that hung dim in his memory. But it was pleas¬ 
ing to hear him practice; the atmosphere was 
too lazy for perfect execution. He knew he 
could pipe a tune to catch the ear, but he had 
to sit on the treetop, as if he were afraid some 
one would catch the secret of his art if he 
sang lower down. Perhaps he was vain, but I 
have watched him when he seemed to whistle as 
unconsciously as I breathed. 
The morning of July 6 the three young birds 
left the nest following their parents out into the 
limbs of the arrowwood. They were not able 
to fly more than a few feet, but they knew how 
to perch and call for food. I never heard a 
more enticing dinner song, such a sweet, musical 
“tour-a-lee.” The triplets were slightly differ¬ 
ent in size and strength. The eldest knew the 
note of alarm, and two or three times when he 
got real hungry I heard him utter a shriek that 
brought the old birds in a hurry. Then he 
flapped his wings and teased his mother for a 
morsel. The minute his appetite was appeased 
he always took a nap. There was no worry 
on his mind as to where the next bite was com¬ 
ing from. He just contracted into a fluffy ball 
and did not pause a second on the border land. 
It was so simple; his lids closed and it was 
done. He slept soundly, too, for I patted his 
feathers and he did not wake. But at the flutter 
of wings he awoke as suddenly as he had 
dropped asleep. 
The birds fed their bantlings as much on 
berries as worms and insects. Once I saw the 
male distribute a whole mouthful of green 
measuring worms. The next time he had visited 
a garden down the hillside, for he brought one 
raspberry in his bill and coughed up three more. 
We spent the next two days watching and 
photographing, but it took all the third fore¬ 
noon to find the three bantlings. The female 
had enticed one down the slope to the hazel 
bush near the creek. I watched her for two 
hours before I heard the soft “tour-a-lee” of 
the youngster. He perched on my finger and 
I brought him back to the nest. Another we 
found down in the thimbleberry bushes, which, 
with the third up in the maple sapling over the 
nest, seemed to be in the keeping of the male. 
Nature has given the grosbeak a large and 
powerful bill to crack seeds and hard kernels, 
but it seemed to me this would be rather an in¬ 
convenience when it came to feeding children. 
If it was, the parents did not show it. The 
mother always cocked her head to one side so 
her baby could easily grasp the morsel, and it 
was all so quickly done that only the camera’s 
eye could catch the way she did it. She slipped 
her bill clear into the youngster’s mouth, and 
lie took the bite as hurriedly as if he were 
afraid she would change her mind and give it 
to the next baby. After watching the grosbeak 
family all day, we put the little ones in a little 
isolated clump of bushes late in the afternoon, 
MALE GROSBEAK FEEDING YOUNG ON MEASURING 
WORMS. 
Photograph by H. T. Bohlman. 
