ORDER PASSERES. 311 



formed by a large branch from the trunk. It lays four 

 bluish-green eggs, spotted with olive brown, and irregular 

 blackish bars. The young come from the egg covered with 

 down, and are fed by their parents on insects. The old 

 and young birds continue to form one family for the first 

 season, feeding on nuts and hard seeds, which they easily 

 break by means of their strong bills. 



These birds afford little to interest in a state of captivity ; 

 and it seems necessary to keep them apart from other less 

 powerful birds, whom they will kill, not with the bill, but by 

 pinching out the flesh with their talons. 



The foreign coccothraustes of Cuvier afford little matter 

 of interest beyond their specific characters, at least so far 

 as observations have been hitherto made and published upon 

 them. The opposite figure (F. Bella) of one of these, re- 

 markable for its beauty, is from the Museum of the Linnaean 

 Society. It is the weebong of Port Jackson, and is little more 

 than three inches long. 



The bill and rump are bright red ; round the eyes, and also 

 at the edge of the forehead, is a black line. The rest of 

 the bird is deep ashy-grey, rather lighter on the under parts, 

 traversed every where by small transverse black bars. 



A number of real or factitious species have been appro- 

 priated to this division ; but there is great uncertainty about 

 many of them ; and as the primary character of the genus, 

 the grossness of the bill, varies in degree in the several species, 

 a perfect monagraph of this group in the present state of 

 knowledge, is impracticable, if not altogether hopeless. 



The foreign subgenus Pitylus, is distinguished, as we 

 have seen, from the grosbeaks proper by a slight compression 

 in the bill, with a convexity in the upper mandible, and 

 occasionally an angle in the lower jaw. 



Of the Violaceous Grosbeaky belonging to this subgenus^ the 



