SONG—BIRDS. Grosbeak
Female : Brownish, sulphur-yellow under wings ; no rosy tint; heavy brown bill.
Song: A delightful, rolling warble, often heard toward evening.
Season : Common summer resident ; May 1 to middle September.
Breeds : From the Middle States northward.
Nest: A perfect circle, neatly made of fibres and grass, lined with finer grasses, placed in a low tree, or more frequently a thorn bush in old pastures near the edge of woods.
Eggs : Dirty green, with dark brown spots and speckles.
Range: Eastern United States and southern Canada; west to the eastern border of the Plains; south in winter to Cuba, Central America, and northern South America.
You will always remember the day when you first see this Grosbeak. Its song may be familiar to you, though you are wholly unconscious of it; for in the great spring chorus you may mistake it for a particularly melodious Robin, who has added a few Oriole notes to his repertoire. The Grosbeak’s song, however, has a retrospective quality all its own, and shared by neither Robin or Oriole,—a sort of dreaminess, in keeping with its habit of singing into the night. Gibson says that its song is suffused with colour like a luscious tropic fruit rendered into sound.
The songster itself, if seen feeding, as it sometimes does, upon the grass, is a dark, clumsy-looking bird, with an awk- ward beak; and it is only when you look at it from beneath, as it perches in the trees, that you see the rosy shield and flush under the outspread wings.
I first identified bird and song one June twilight, after a day when the roses had burst into sudden bloom; and it seemed as if their glorious colour was reflected on this novel bird and mingled with his song. I have never found the nest near here, but Mr. Averill says that they breed freely in the vicinity, and that this spring he saw a male covering the nest, an unusual occurrence with birds of such conspic- uous colouring.
In some parts of Pennsylvania, according to Dr. Warren, the farmers protect this Grosbeak, owing to its services in killing potato-bugs, and have christened it the Potato-bug
Bird. Its diet is varied, comprising beetles, flies, larvae, 163
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