e 
288 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 
killed an Indigo-bird, and two or three others, that were occasion- 
ally placed with them, driving them into a corner of the cage, 
standing on them, and tearing out their feathers, striking them on 
the head, munching their wings, &c., till I was obliged to interfere ; 
and, even if called to, the aggressor would only turn up a malicious 
eye to me for a moment, and renew his outrage as before. They are 
a hardy, vigorous bird. In the month of October, about the time 
of their first arrival, I shot a male, rich in plumage, and plump in 
flesh, but which wanted one leg, that had been taken off a little 
above the knee: the wound had healed so completely, and was 
covered with so thick a skin, that it seemed as though it had been 
so for years. Whether this mutilation was occasioned by a shot, or 
in party quarrels of its own, I could not determine: but our invalid 
seemed to have used his stump either in hopping or resting; for it 
had all the appearance of having been brought in frequent contact 
with bodies harder than itself.” 
CHRYSOMITRIS, Bors. 
Chrysomitris, Bors, Isis (1828), 822. (Type Fringilla spinus, Linneus.) 
Bill rather acutely conic, the tip not very sharp; the culmen slightly convex at 
the tip; the commissure gently curved; nostrils concealed; obsolete ridges on the 
upper mandible; tarsi shorter than the middle toe; outer toe rather the longer, 
reaching to the base of the middle one; claw of hind toe shorter than the digital 
portion; wings and tail as in Aegiothus. 
The colors are generally yellow, with black on the crown, throat, back, wings, 
and tail, varied sometimes with white. 
CHRYSOMITRIS TRISTIS. — Bonaparte. 
The Yellow-bird; Thistle-bird. 
Fringilla tristis, Linneeus. Syst. Nat., I. (1766) 820. Wils. Am. Orn., I. (1808) 20. 
Aud. Orn. Biog., I. (1831) 172; V. 510. 
DESCRIPTION. 
Bright gamboge-yellow; crown, wings, and tail, black; lesser wing coverts, 
band across the end of greater ones, ends of secondaries and tertiaries, inner mar- 
gins of tail feathers, upper and under tail coverts, and tibia, white. Female re- 
placing the yellow of the male by a greenish-olive color. 
Length, five and twenty-five one-hundredths inches; wing, three inches. 
This well-known bird is a very common summer inhab- 
itant of all New England, and in the southern districts 
