BIRDS OF KAl^SAS. 487 



male) more bulTj', the markings more suffused with tlie iirouiid color, and remiges 

 and tail feathers tinged with olive greenish. {Bidijicdij.) 



Iris browii; bill — upper dusky, under pale bluish; legs, feet 

 and claws dark bluish brown. 



This bird is almost a counterpart in habits and actions of the 

 Rose-breasted Grosbeak, which they replace in the west. Their 

 song is also very similar. It is uttered in a little more rapid 

 and varied manner, but is fully as clear and melodious, and 

 always seemed sweeter and nearer to me; perhaps it is because 

 I have usually listened to it in the shrubby groves, far out upon 

 the plains, where almost any sound, animate or inanimate, that 

 breaks the surrounding stillness is welcomed, like the chirrup of 

 crickets in winter at our firesides; and whenever they greet me 

 from the treetops in such places, I feel like pitching my tent, for 

 I know they will sing my lullaby at eve, and refresh me with 

 an early morning song. 



Eggs three or four. They vary greatly in size. A set of 

 four eggs, taken May 12, 1877, at Santa Cruz, California, from 

 a nest loosely composed of a few twigs, weeds, rootlets and 

 grasses, placed in a willow tree, about ten feet from the ground, 

 are, in dimensions: .91x.70, .92x,70, .95x.72, .97x.68; bluish 

 to greenish white, speckled and spotted with reddish and rusty 

 brown, thickest around larger end; some heavily, others spar- 

 ingly marked; in form, oval. 



Genus GUIRACA Swainsox. 



"Bill very large, nearly as high as long; the culmen slightly curved, with a 

 rather sharp ridge; the commissure conspicuously angulated just below the 

 nostril; the posterior leg of the angle nearly as long as the anterior, both nearly 

 straight. Lower jaw deeper than the upper, and extending much behind tlie 

 forehead; the width greater than the length of the gonys, considerably wider 

 than the upper jaw. A prominent knob in the roof of the mouth. Tarsi shorter 

 than the middle toe; the outer a little longer, reaching not quite to the base of 

 the middle claw; hind toe rather longer than to this base. Wings long, reach- 

 ing the middle of the tail; the secondaries and tertials nearly equal; the second 

 quills longest; the first less than the fourth. Tail very nearly even, shorter than 

 the wings." 



