EVENING GROSBEAK. 269 



Mr. Leadbeater with the most obliging liberality has confided to our 

 charge. 



Although we consider the Grosbeaks [CoccotJiraustes) as onlj a sub- 

 genus of our great genus Fringilla, they may with equal propriety con- 

 stitute one by themselves ; as the insensible degrees by which interme- 

 diate species pass from one form into another (which determined us in 

 considering them as a subgenus, and not a genus), are equally observable 

 between other groups, though admitted as genera. Coccothraustes is as 

 much entitled to be distinguished generically from Fringilla^ as Tiirdus 

 from Sylvia ; and at all events, its claim is full as good, and perhaps 

 better, than its near relation PyrrJiula. In the present work, however, 

 we have preferred retaining things as we found them, until we can apply 

 ourselves to the work of a general reform, as announced in the first 

 article of this volume. Though we regard the Grosbeaks as a subgenus, 

 others going to the opposite extreme, have erected them into a separate 

 family, composed of several genera. The Evening Grosbeak is however 

 so precisely similar in form to the Hawfinch-type of the group, as to 

 defy the attempts of the most determined innovators to separate them. 

 Its bill is as broad, as high, quite as strong and turgid, with both man- 

 dibles equal, the upper depressed and rounded above, and the commissure 

 straight. It conforms even, in a slight degree, in the rhomboidal shape 

 of the ends of the secondaries, a character so conspicuous in its ana- 

 logue ; to which, in the distribution and transitions of its tints, though 

 very different, it also bears a resemblance. It is however of the four 

 North American species of its group, the only one so strictly allied, for 

 even the Cardinal Grosbeak, the most nearly related of these species, 

 on account of its short rounded wings and other minor traits, might be 

 separated, though fortunately it has not as yet to our knowledge : the 

 others have been already. 



The Evening Grosbeak is eight and a half inches long ; its bill is of 

 a greenish yellow, brighter on the margins, seven-eighths of an inch long, 

 five-eighths broad, the same in height ; the capistrum and lora are 

 black : the front is widely bright yellow, prolonged in a broad stripe 

 over the eye to the ears ; the hind crown is black, intermixed wit.b. 

 yellow, visible only on separating the feathers, but leading to the sus- 

 picion that at some period the yellow extends perhaps all over the 

 crown : the sides and inferior parts of the head, the whole neck above 

 and beneath, together with the interscapulars and breast, are of a dark 

 olive brown, becoming lighter by degrees ; the scapulars are yellow, 

 slightly tinged with greenish ; the back, rump, with the whole lateral 

 and inferior surface, including the under wing and under tail coverts, 

 yellow, purer on the rump, and somewhat tinged with olive brown on 

 the belly. Although these colors are all very pure, they are not defi- 

 nitely separated, but pass very insensibly into each other ; thus the 



