PINE GROSBEAK. 583 



with the Crossbills in many of its habits, as well as in the 

 general colouring and changes of its plumage. 



The food of this species is seeds and berries ; it frequents 

 pine forests, builds a nest of small sticks, with a lining of 

 feathers, and usually places it on a branch of a tree, a few 

 feet only above the ground. It lays four or five white eggs, 

 about one inch long, by ten lines in breadth : and the young 

 birds are said to be hatched in June. The male has an 

 agreeable song, will sometimes sing at night, and in con- 

 finement is said to remain in song nearly the whole of the 

 year. 



The Pine Grosbeak is more abundant in the northern 

 parts of Europe and America than elsewhere, and is 

 found in Sweden, Norway, Lapland, Russia, Siberia, and 

 sparingly in the north of Germany, but more fre- 

 quently now than formerly. According to M. Vieillot, 

 it is a very rare bird in France, sometimes seen, and 

 then only in winter, in those parts bordering on Ger- 

 many or Switzerland, where there are abundance of Pine 

 Forests ; but this bird has been seen as far south as Pro- 

 vence and Genoa. 



North America appears to be the country in which the 

 habits of the Pine Grosbeak have been more attentively ob- 

 served, and to the recent describers of the birds of that ex- 

 tended region I must refer for particulars. Mr. Audubon 

 has observed them in Newfoundland, on the coast of La- 

 brador, and at Hudson's Bay. In the winter of 1836 these 

 birds were seen as far south as the vicinity of Philadel- 

 phia; and that season also they were abundant in the 

 States of New York and Massachusets. Dr. Richardson 

 saw them as far north as the 60th parallel. Mr. Audubon, 

 in his extended and valuable Ornithological Biography, 

 says, " The flight of the Pine Grosbeak is undulating and 



