182 ROSE-BREASTED GROSBEAK. 
ROSE-BREASTED GROSBEAK.* —LOXIA ROSEA. — Fic. 78. 
Loxia Ludoviciana, Turton’s Syst.—Red-breasted Grosbeak, Arct. Zool. p. 350, 
No. 212.—Red-breasted Finch, Jd. 372, No. 245.— Le rose gorge, Buf. ili. 
460. — Gros-bec de Ja Louisiane, Pl. enl. 153, fig. 2.— Lath. ii. 126.— Peale’s 
Museum, No. 5806, male; 5807, female ; 5806, a, male of one year old. 
GUIRACA LUDOVICIAN A. —Swatnson. 
Fringilla (sub-genus Coccothraustes) Ludoviciana, Bonap. Synop. p. 113. —Coc- 
cothraustes (Guiraca) Teton North. Zool. Ce 271. 
Tuts elegant species is rarely found in the lower parts of Pennsyl- 
vania; in the state of New York, and those of New England, it is 
more frequently observed, particularly in fall, when the berries of the 
sour gum are ripe, on the kernels of which it eagerly feeds. Some of 
its trivial names would import that it is also an inhabitant of Louisiana; 
but I have not heard of its being seen in any of the Southern States. 
A gentleman of Middletown, Connecticut, informed me that he kept 
one of these birds for some considerable time in a cage, and observed 
that it frequently sang at night, and all night; that its notes were 
extremely clear and mellow, and the sweetest of any bird with which 
he is acquainted. 
The bird from which the figure on the plate was taken, was shot, 
late in April, on the borders of a swamp, a few miles from Philadel- 
phia. Another male of the same species was killed at the same time, 
considerably different in its markings; a proof that they do not ac- 
quire their full colors until at least the second spring or summer. 
The Rose-breasted Grosbeak is eight inches and a half long, and 
thirteen inches in extent; the whole upper parts are black, except the 
second row of wing-coverts, which are broadly tipped with white; a 
spot of the same extends over the primaries, immediately below their 
coverts; chin, neck, and upper part of the breast, black; lower part of 
the breast, middle of the belly, and lining of the wings, a fine light 
carmine, or rose color; tail, forked, black, the three exterior feathers, 
on each side, white on their inner vanes for an inch or more from the 
tips; bill, like those of its tribe, very thick and strong, and pure white ; 
legs and feet, light blue; eyes, hazel. The young male of the first 
spring has the plumage of the back variegated with light brown, white 
* This species seems to have been described, under various specific names, by 
various authors. Wilson, in the body of his work, calls it L. rosea; but he corrects 
that name afterwards in the index, and restores that by which it must now stand. 
The generic appellation has also been various, and the necessity of some decided 
one cannot be better shown, than in the different opinions expressed by naturalists, 
who have placed it in three or four of the known genera, without being very well , 
satisfied with any of its situations. Gmelin and Cetin have even placed the young 
and old in different genera, Loxia and Fringilla ; by Brisson, it is a Coscockraus 
tes; and by Sabine, a Phyrrhula. It appears a form exclusively American, sup- 
peeniine, the Coccothraustes of Asia and the Indian continent, and Guiraca has 
een epprape aes to it by Mr. Swainson, in which will also range the Cardinal and 
Blue Grosbeaks of our author. — Ep. ‘ 
