(_Coccothraustes vespertinus_) Finch family
_Length_--8 inches. Two inches shorter than the robin.
_Male_--Forehead, shoulders, and underneath clear yellow: dull
yellow on lower back; sides of the head, throat, and breast
olive-brown. Crown, tail, and wings black, the latter with
white secondary feathers. Bill heavy and blunt, and yellow.
_Female_--Brownish gray, more or less suffused with yellow.
Wings and tail blackish, with some white feathers.
_Range_--Interior of North America. Resident from Manitoba
northward. Common winter visitor in northwestern United States
and Mississippi Valley; casual winter visitor in northern
Atlantic States.
In the winter of 1889-90 Eastern people had the rare treat of becoming
acquainted with this common bird of the Northwest, that, in one of its
erratic travels, chose to visit New England and the Atlantic States,
as far south as Delaware, in great numbers. Those who saw the evening
grosbeaks then remember how beautiful their yellow plumage--a rare
winter tint--looked in the snow-covered trees, where small companies
of the gentle and even tame visitors enjoyed the buds and seeds of the
maples, elders, and evergreens. Possibly evening grosbeaks were in
vogue for the next season's millinery, or perhaps Eastern
ornithologists had a sudden zeal to investigate their structural
anatomy. At any rate, these birds, whose very tameness, that showed
slight acquaintance with mankind, should have touched the coldest
heart, received the warmest kind of a reception from hot shot. The few
birds that escaped to the solitudes of Manitoba could not be expected
to tempt other travellers eastward by an account of their visit. The
bird is quite likely to remain rare in the East.
But in the Mississippi Valley and throughout the northwest, companies
of from six to sixty may be regularly counted upon as winter neighbors
on almost every farm. Here the females keep up a busy chatting, like a
company of cedar birds, and the males punctuate their pauses with a
single shrill note that gives little indication of their vocal powers.
But in the solitude of the northern forests the love-song is said to
resemble the robin's at the start. Unhappily, after a most promising
beginning, the bird suddenly stops, as if he were out of breath.