8o PINE GROSBEAK. 



are driven, as if with reluctance, by the rigours of winter, to 

 visit Canada and some of the northern and middle States, 

 returning to Hudson's Bay so early as April. The specimen 

 from which our drawing was taken was shot on a cedar tree, 

 a few miles to the north of Philadelphia, in the month of 

 December ; and a faithful resemblance of the original, as it 

 then appeared, is exhibited in the plate. A few days after- 

 wards, another bird of the same species was killed not far from 

 Gray's Ferry, four miles south from Philadelphia, which proved 

 to be a female. In this part of the State of Pennsylvania, they 

 are rare birds, and seldom seen. As they do not, to my know- 

 ledge, breed in any part of this State, I am unable, from per- 

 sonal observation, to speak of their manners or musical talents. 



ferent parts of Europe or America, can seldom rank the pine grosbeak 

 among their number. The testimony of all travellers in America, who 

 have attended to nature, correspond in their accounts, and one of the 

 latest, Mr Audubon, has mentioned it to me as of extreme scarcity. In 

 this country they seem to be of equal rarity, though they are generally 

 placed in our list of British birds without any remark. Pennant ob- 

 serves (Arct. Zool. ii. 348), that he has seen them in the forests of Inver- 

 cauld ; and Mr Selby says (Br. Orn. 257), that, from the testimony of 

 the gamekeepers, whom he had an opportunity of speaking with in the 

 Highlands, they may be ranked only as occasional visitants. I am 

 aware, however, of no instance of their being killed in this country. 

 Pennant infers, from those which he saw in the month of August, that 

 they breed here. " Such a conclusion," Mr Selby justly remarks, " ought 

 scarcely to be inferred from this fact, as a sufficient interval of time had 

 elapsed for these individuals to have emigrated from Norway, or other 

 northern countries, to Scotland, after incubation, as they are known to 

 breed as early as May in their natural haunts." I have been unable to 

 find any trace whatever of their ever breeding in this country ; most of 

 the migrating species breed very early, and those that change their 

 station for the sake of finding a breeding-place, commence the office of 

 building, &c, immediately on their arrival, a necessary circumstance to 

 enable the young to perform their migration before the change of season. 

 Cuvier has formed his genus Corythus of this individual, which still 

 remains the only one that has yet been placed in it ; but I am of 

 opinion that the crimson-necked bullfinch (Pyrrhula frontalis, Say) 

 should stand very near, or with it. Their alliance to the true bull- 

 finches is very great, and Mr Swainson's genus, Crithagra, may form 

 another near ally. — Ed. 



