evergreen trees which it frequents. sk ‘man, who was — 
present, interrupted her by saying, “Why, that bird is out- _ 
side of the window in a fir tree now, and they are the first 
I have ever seen in this neighborhood. 2 
Sure enough, there was a flock feeding near, and the — { 
canary-yellow forehead, the black wings with a big splash 
of white, and the slightly forked tails of the males showed 
- go well that they could easily be told from the plainer buffy, 
smoke-gray females of the group. All people who were 
present said the birds had never been in the neighborhood 
before, but the ‘speaker wondered if it was i ed case of 
blind eyes. | | 
Little is known of the nesting habits of these Western 
Evening Grosbeaks, but Mrs. Bailey wrote in her Handbook 
of Birds of the Western United States: “The breeding 
range of the grosbeak is largely coincident with the range 
of the lichen, of the forests of the Sierra Nevada, Cascades - 
and Northern Rockies.” As they show very little of the — 
usual fear of man when they visit cities and can be easily 
coaxed to make friends, observers think that they have been 
living in solitudes and have had little experience of the 
dangers that are hidden in stones, cats, guns, or. slingshots. — 
Children, in making reports of their observations, often © 
_ tell strange tales of the large numbers of parrots they have | 
seen, and are told that parrots are residents only of tropical 
se mcivlaa. These boys and girls have recognized a resem- 
blance between grosbeaks and parrots which is close enough 
to have given the former in some places the popular name 
of “Japanese Parrots,” although the absence of the hook of 
the parrot on the beak of the grosbeak would be instantly 
noticed by a bird student. | 
Other species of grosbeaks visit the ek a | 
the whims of travel incline their hearts. The Black-headed 
Grosbeak is occasionally seen as far north as British 
Columbia in the low growth of trees near water. Rarely — 
their nests have been found in Seattle, but in the hill regions © 
$52. 
