BLACK-HEADED GROSBEAK. 215 



but never-tiring tale of his affection and devotion to the joys of nature. His 

 song, which greatly resembles that of the Red-breasted Grosbeak, is heard 

 at early dawn, and at intervals nearly to the close of night. It is a loud, 

 varied, high-toned and melodious fife, which rises and falls in the sweetest 

 cadence; but always, like the song of the Nightingale, leaves a sensation of 

 pleasing sadness on the ear, which fascinates more powerfully than the most 

 cheering hilarity. In fact, the closing note of our bird is often so querulous 

 as to appear like the shrill cry of appealing distress; it sinks at last so faintly, 

 yet still so charmingly on the sense. When seen, which is only by accident, 

 he sits conspicuously on some lofty bough, below the summit of the tree, and 

 raising his head, and swelling his throat with a rising motion, almost amount- 

 ing to a flutter, he appears truly rapt in ecstacy, and seems to enjoy his own 

 powers of melody as much as the listener. Even the cruel naturalist, ever 

 eager to add another trophy to his favourite science, feels arrested by his 

 appeal, and connives at his escape from the clutch of the collector. 



"About the month of July, in the Rocky Mountains, I observed the 

 female feeding her fledged young, and they also spent the summer in the 

 thickest branches, but with the nest and eggs I am unacquainted. The song, 

 as I have heard it, in the forests of Columbia, seems to be like the syllables, 

 'tait, weet, teet, weowit, teet iveowit, teet weeowit, verr, and sometimes 

 terminating weet, weet, weet, every note a loud tender trill of the utmost 

 sweetness, delivered in his own "wood-notes wild," mocking nothing, but 

 still exulting in his powers, which, while exerted, seem to silence every 

 songster around. The Robin seems almost his pupil in song and similarity 

 of expression, but falls short, and after our Orpheus, seems at best but a 

 faltering scholar." 



Male, 8-£, wing, 4£. 



Central table-land of Rocky Mountains. Common. Migratory. 



Black-headed Grosbeak, Fringilla melanocephala, And. Orn. Biog., vol. iv. p. 519. 

 Guiraca melanocephala, Swainson. 



Adult Male. 



Bill rather short, very robust, bulging at the base, conical, acute; upper 

 mandible with its dorsal outline a little convex, the sides rounded, the edges 

 sharp, ascending from the base to beyond the nostrils, then deflected with a 

 slight median festoon, and an obscure notch close to the tip; lower mandible 

 with the angle short and very broad, the dorsal line straight, the back very 

 broad at the base, the sides high and convex, the edges inflected, the tip 

 acute. Nostrils basal, roundish, partly concealed by the feathers. 



Head large, roundish-ovate; neck short; body rather full. Legs of mode- 



