330 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Distribution. This Grosbeak inhabits the southeastern United States, 

 locally northward as far as southern Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Kansas; 

 winters in Cuba and southern Mexico. DeKay, in " Birds of New York," 

 page 146, reports a specimen from Manhattan island taken May 15, 1838. 

 There is also a specimen in the collection of the Long Island Historical 

 Society taken at Canarsie, Long Island, in May 1843. Bicknell (N. O. C. 

 Bui. 31:32) mentions its occurrence on Long Island "many years ago," 

 which allusion may well be to the specimen referred to. Lawrence, in 

 his catalog of birds from the vicinity of New York, also includes this species 

 (Lyceum N. Y. Annals 8, 1866, 286); Egbert Bagg reports two seen in 

 central New York (Birds Oneida County, ed. 2, page 69); Mr Willard 

 E. Yager writes of seeing a flock of 12 Blue grosbeaks in July 1899, near 

 Oneonta, Otsego county. Besides these reports there are several others 

 less clearly substantiated from different parts of the State, which may 

 well be reports of the actual occurrence of this species; but no specimens 

 other than the one above recorded have been found in the different col- 

 lections which the author has examined. 



Passerina cyanea (Linnaeus) 

 Indigo Bit)i ting 



Plate 86 



Tanagra cyanea Linnaeus. Syst. Nat. Ed. 12. 1766. 1:315 

 Spiza cyanea DeKay. Zool. N. Y. 1844. pt 2, p. 173, fig. 157 

 Passerina cyanea A. O. U. Check List. Ed. 3. 1910. p. 285. No. 598 

 passerina, Lat., of or like a sparrow; cyanea, Gr., xuavsos, dark blue 



Description. Male: Deep blue; a deep ultramarine blue on head 

 and breast, more inclined to azure blue on the back; the concealed portions 

 of the wings and tail blackish, but showing very little except when they 

 are spread. Female: Grayish brown; tail, wings and rump obscurely 

 edged with blue; obscure buffy whitish wing bars; under parts dingy white, 

 strongly tinged on the breast and sides with buffy brown and obscurely 

 streaked with dusky. Young resemble the female but darker. 



Length 5-5.75 inches; extent 8.55; wing 2.6; tail 2.1; bill .41; 

 tarsus .67. 



