Length -- Variously recorded from 6.5 to 11 inches. Specimen
measured 8.5 inches. About one-fifth smaller than the robin.
Male -- General color strawberry-red, with some slate-gray
fleckings about head, under wings, and on legs. Tail brown;
wings brown, marked with black and white and slate. A band-
shaped series of markings between the shoulders. Underneath
paler red, merging into grayish green. Heavy, conspicuous bill.
Female -- Ash-brown. Head and hind neck yellowish brown, each
feather having central dusky streak. Cheeks and throat
yellowish. Beneath ash-gray, tinged with brownish yellow under
tail.
Range -- British American provinces and northern United States.
Migrations -- Irregular winter visitors; length of visits as
uncertain as their coming.
As inseparable as bees from flowers, so are these beautiful winter visitors
from the evergreen woods, where their red feathers, shining against the
dark-green background of the trees, give them charming prominence; but they
also feed freely upon the buds of various deciduous trees.
South of Canada we may not look for them except in the severest winter
weather. Even then their coming is not to be positively depended upon; but
when their caprice -- or was it an unusually fierce northern blast? -- sends
them over the Canada border, it is a simple matter to identify them when such
brilliant birds are rare. The brownish-yellow and grayish females and young
males, however, always seem to be in the majority with us, though our Canadian
friends assure us of the irreproachable morals of this gay bird.
Wherever there are clusters of pine or cedar trees, when there is a flock of
pine grosbeaks in the neighborhood, you may expect to find a pair of birds
diligently feeding upon the seeds and berries. No cheerful note escapes them
as they persistently gormandize, and, if the truth must be confessed, they
appear to be rather stupid and uninteresting, albeit they visit us at a time
when we are most inclined to rapture over our bird visitors. They are said to
have a deliciously sweet song in the nesting season. When, however, few except
the Canadian voyageurs hear it.