fears, and a sense of oppression weighs us down. The leaden minutes creep on wearin and noiselessly, unbroken even by the hum of an insect; two or three blackbirds, hopping listlessly about as if they wished they were somewhere else but had not energy enough to go there, are the only signs of life that greet our faithful animals and ourselves.”
The Western Evening Grosbeak
BY WM. ROGERS LORD
With photographs from nature
THE Evening Grosbeak is not generally well known upon the Atlantic coast. Whether it is a more familiar bird in the Central West I cannot say; but upon the Pacific coast, at all events in the states of Oregon and Washington, a variety of this beautiful creature is, at least,
every two years—from February to May—very abundant and most wonderfully tame.
The western species is a little darker in shade than is the eastern bird, but otherwise very much the same in appearance and habit. The color is, for the most part, ‘old gold,’ darker about the head, with large white patches upon the wings. Of course, as the name indicates, these birds have a large bill, showing the use to which they put it in cracking pine - cones and other tough coverings of the seeds which furnish them food.
They come into the cities and towns of the Willamette valley, Oregon, and around Puget Sound, Washington, about every other year in large numbers. Though the usual flock is not above fifty or sixty birds, it is sometimes much larger and sometimes considerably smaller. They draw very near to the homes and the persons of men.
