240 BLUE GROSBEAK. 
BLUE GROSBEAK.—LOXIA CCERULEA.— Fic. 115. 
Linn. Syst. 304. — Lath. iii. 116.— Arct. Zool. p. 351, No. 217. — Catesb. i. 39. — 
Buff. iii. 454. Pl. enl. 154.— Peale’s Museum, No. 5826. 
GUIRACA CCERULEA.— Swarnson.* 
Fringilla coerulea, Bonap. Synop. p. 114. 
Tus solitary and retired species inhabits the warmer parts of 
America, from Guiana, and probably farther south,t to Virginia. Mr. 
Bartram also saw it during a summer’s residence near Lancaster, 
Pennsylvania. In the United States, however, it is a scarce species ; 
and having but few notes, is more rarely observed. Their most com- 
mon note is a loud chuck ; they have also at times a.few low, sweet- 
toned notes. They are sometimes kept in cages, in Carolina; but 
seldom sing in confinement. The individual represented in Fig. 115, 
was a very elegant specimen, in excellent order, though just arrived 
from Charleston, South Carolina. During its stay with me, I fed it on 
Indian corn, which it seemed to prefer, easily breaking with its pow- 
erful bill the hardest grains. They also- feed on hemp seed, millet, 
and the kernels of several kinds of berries. They are timid birds, 
watchful, silent, and active, and generally neat in their plumage. 
Having never yet met with their nest, I am unable at present to de- 
scribe it. 
The Blue Grosbeak is six inches long, and ten inches in extent; 
lores and frontlet, black; whole upper parts, a rich purplish blue, 
more dull on'the back, where it is streaked with dusky ; greater wing- 
coverts, black, edged at the tip with bay; next superior row, wholly 
chestnut; rest of the wing, black, skirted with blue; tail, forked, 
black, slightly edged with bluish, and sometimes: minutely tipped 
with white ; legs and feet, lead color; bill, a dusky bluish horn color; 
eye, large, full, and black. : 
The female is of a dark drab color, tinged with blue, and considera- 
bly lightest below. I suspect the males are subject to a change of 
color during winter. The young, as usual with many other specics, 
do not receive the blue color until the ensuing: spring, and, till then, 
very much resemble the female. 
Latham makes two varieties of this species; the first, wholly blue, 
except a black spot between the bill and eye; this bird inhabits 
Brazil, and is figured by Brisson, Ornithology, iii. 321, No. 6, pl. 17, 
Fig. 2. The other is also generally of a fine deep blue, except the 
quills, tail, and legs, which are black; this is Edwards’s' “ Blue Gros- 
beak, from Angola,” pl. 125; which Dr. Latham suspects to have 
been brought from some of the Brazilian settlements, and. considers 
both as mere varieties of the first. I am sorry I cannot at present 
clear up this mation, but shall take some ft ther notice of it hereafter. 
* Loxia coerulea is not figured in tie P/. enl, That bird is-a- Pitylus. 
+ Latuam, ii. p 116. 
