Genus XXXV. LOXIA* GROSBEAK. 

 Species I. L. CARDINALIH. 



CARDINAL GROSBEAK. 



[Plate XI. Figs. 1, 2.] 



Linn. Syst. i , p. 300, No. 5. — Le Gros-hec de Virginie, Briss. Orn. iii., p. 255, No. 

 17.— Buff, hi., p. 458, pi. 28. PI. Enl. 37.— Lath. Syn. ii., p. 118, No. 13.- 

 Cardinal, Brown's Jam. p. 647.t 



This is one of our most common cage birds ; ^nd is very generally 

 known, not only in North America, but even in Europe ; numbers of 

 them having been carried over both to France and England, in which 

 last country they are usually called Virginia Nightingales. To this 

 name, Dr. Latham observes, "they are fully entitled," from the clear- 

 ness and variety of their notes, which, both in a wild and domestic 

 state, are very various and musical ; many of them resemble the high 

 notes of a fife, and are nearly as loud. They are in song from March 

 to September, beginning at the first appearance of dawn, and repeating 

 a favorite stanza, or passage, twenty or thirty times successively ; some- 

 times with little intermission for a whole morning together ; which, like 

 a good story too often repeated, becomes at length tiresome and insipid. 

 But the sprightly figure, and gaudy plumage of the Red-bird, his 

 vivacity, strength of voice, and actual variety of note, and the little 

 expense with which he is kept, will always make him a favorite. 



This species, like the Mocking-bird, is more numerous to the east of 

 the great range of the Alleghany Mountains ; and inhabits from New 

 England to Carthagena. Michaux the younger, son to the celebrated 

 botanist, informed me, that he found this bird numerous in the Bermu- 

 das. In Pennsylvania and the Northern States it is rather a scarce 

 species ; but through the whole lower parts of the Southern States, in 

 the neighborhood of settlements, I found them much more numerous ; 

 their clear and lively notes, in the months of January and February, 



* This genus, as constituted by Brisson and at present adopted, does not include 

 the four species described under it by Wilson. The three first have been referred 

 to the genus FringiUa, and the fourth, according to Temminck, belongs to the genus 

 Pyrrhula of Brisson. 



t Wo add the following synonymes : — Loxia cardinalis, Gmel. I^st. i., p. 847, 

 Cardinal Gt tsbeak, Arct. Zool. No. 210. Catesb. Car. i., t. p. 38. 



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