Norwich bulletin., 1911-03-11
The Quail Trap. March 8. 1911.

V
 grosbeak to- TaftviIle this; winter is
 the most notable event in the bird an- na1s of eastern Connecticut for many
 years. It's stay is of no economic
 value, nor does it give more than a
 shade of light on the mystery of mi-
 grafton. But that so rare and shoWy
 bird, unknown here for a generation,
 so far from it's natural habitat, should appear in large company, make so
 long a stay in one place, and be so
 perfectly at home with it's new envi-
 ronment and food, is remarkable. Other birds migrate yearly from north to south, but this cratic bird every twenty-five years leaves his home in the northern wilderness and makes an eastern tour straight across the con tinent Doesn't find its way back with 'II the same unerrfng certainty as the migrants south and north?
 Let US look up few authorities in my working library. Audubon and the pioneer ornithologist did not see the evening grosbeak. In the copy of Wilson on my desk no mention is described it. Morrison's Birds of Con- necticut has no Connecticut records, though. no doubt now, the emil nent author would find a lot of local material. In Samuers Our Northern and Eastern Birds no mention is made.
 
 Coues' New England Bird Life says.
 it nlAv later struggle into New Eng
 1and." Maynard's Birds of Eastern
 North America says, rare to New
 England in winter: winter Nest and ags eggs s
 American Birds. Not mentioned in
 CoueS Birds of the Colorado Valley,
 Coues' Birds of the Northwest says:
 Not procured by either of the expe-
 ditions. The scientists did not quite
 kill the grosbeak with Latin names
 Fringilla espertina, Cocothraustes ves-
 pertina, Hespeorphona vespertina, He's peorphona vespertina var. montana Coccothraustes bonapartii. and Loxie bonapartii
 No plates of nest and eggs of even- ing grosbeak are figured in any of my Benhire, Capen, Davis, Maynard, In gersoll, Reid or Gentry; or in the pre- tentious English or German bird books before me. Walter Raine of Toronto who has a stupendous collection, an6 collectors all over the world, says ir Bird Nesting in Northwest Canada: Eggs of the evening grosbeak are al most unknown in collections and are therefore very valuable" Merrill was the first to see it nesting in an inac- cessible Oregon pine. The first nes' and eggs on record were taken by. JohI SWlHDuTAe III q tHlchly WooOcu CdAy VI fifteen miles west of Springville Apache county, Arizona, June 5. 1884 The second was found May 10, 1886 by E. H. Fisk in Yolo county, Cali fornia. I have never seen an egg ane know of none held by any of my ex- change correspondents today. Eggs ol rose breasted, blue and black headed grosbeaks I find are common with col | lectors, but pine grosbeak's eggs art also rare because they breed late il February in icy surroundings. Botf rosy -breast and pine make fine cagt birds, sing well and breed in confine- ment. But the evening bird does no thrive in captivity and its song is no attractive.
 The best popular description of tn, | evening grosheak is in Frank Chap. mans Handbook of North American
 Birds. Ridgway has the best scientif' description, and the best handy coloret plate is in the last edition of Reeds Loud Birds East of the Rockies. Blu | far and away ahead of the big wig birt | doctors, in interest and records an( I incidents of the great eastern flights, il
 winter of 1889 and 1890. by Amos W
 Cutler. in Vol. K, page 23S of tn, Aux, and in the Aux. Vol x, page 155 In that migration-if it could be s, cal1ed-there were half a dozen Con i necticut records. saw only pines a | Norwich that season, but when hunt l ing snowy owls around the Winthrop .woods on Fort Hill and Bushy Point Groton, for two days, I followed :: | bunch of evenings feeding on tn l swamp and sugar naples, false bitter
 sweet and rotten apple seeds. Ther were about forty birds and only si1 good males. I shot none, but in tha great flight many specimens were talk 1 en for American and foreign cabinets | My own birds have data as late a