\ROSE-BREASTED GROSBEAK. 267 



to sing freely in the niglit. Though he belongs to the 

 Sparrows and Finches, and is therefore a seed and grain- 

 eating bird in structure, he devours multitudes of insects. 

 In early autumn, as the young males go south, resembling 

 the female in color and marking, only much darker and 

 richer, and delicately tinged with rose on the throat and 

 breast, on the crown, and under the wings, they are truly 

 beautiful. 



Wintering in the tropics, migrating through Eastern 

 North America, rather rare in New England, but not un- 

 common in Nova Scotia, the Rose-breast breeds from the 

 Middle States to the latitudes of Labrador. It will thus 

 be seen to belong to the Canadian as well as to the Alle- 

 ghanian Fauna. 



The Blue Grosbeak {Goniaphea ccerulea), some 7.25 long, the 

 male blue, the female brown, is a southern species, reaching 

 the District of Columbia, or even Pennsylvania in the east, 

 and breeding commonly about Manhattan, Kansas, in the 

 west. • Excepting its greater size, it bears a great resem- 

 blance to the Indigo Bird in color, song, and nidification. 

 The nest is in a tree not many feet from the ground. It is 

 rather bulky, composed externally of paper, weeds, strings, 

 bits of cotton or wool and cast-off snake-skins, and is lined 

 with rootlets, fine grasses or horse-hairs. The three or four 

 oval eggs, .95X.62, are pale-blue. 



The Evening Grosbeak {Hesperiphona vespertind) is a 

 straggler from the northwest. Some 7.50-8.50 long, "dusky 

 olivaceous; brighter behind; forehead, line over eye and 

 under tail-coverts, yellow; crown, wings, tail, and tibiae 

 black, the secondary quills, mostly white; bill greenish- 

 yellow, of immense size." (Coues.) It is noted for its 

 melodious evening song. 



