(_Pinicola enucleator_) Finch family
_Called also_: PINE BULLFINCH
_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.