1 88 CARDINAL GROSBEAK. 



CAEDINAL GEOSBEAK. (Loxia cardinalis.) 



PLATE XI.— Figs. 1 and 2. 



Linn. Syst. i. p. 300, No. 5. — Le Gros-bec de Virginie, Briss. Orn. iii. p. 255, 

 No/ 17.— Buff. iii. p. 458, pi. 28. PL enl. 37.— Lath. Syn. ii. p. 118, No. 13. 

 — Cardinal, Brown's Jam. p. 647.— PeaWs Museum, No. 5668. 



GUARICA CARDINALIS.— Swainson. 

 Fringilla cardinalis, Bonap. Synop. p. 113. 



This is one of our most common cage birds ; and is very 

 generally known, not only in North America, but even in 

 Europe, numbers of them having been carried over both to 

 France and England, in which last country they are usually 

 called Virginia nightingales. To this name, Dr Latham 

 observes, " they are fully entitled," from the clearness and 

 variety of their notes, which, both in a wild and domestic 

 state, are very various and musical : many of them resemble 

 the high notes of a fife, and are nearly as loud. They are 

 in song from March to September, beginning at the first 

 appearance of dawn, and repeating a favourite stanza, or 

 passage, twenty or thirty times successively ; sometimes, with 

 little intermission, for a whole morning together, which, like a 

 good story too often repeated, becomes at length tiresome and 

 insipid. But the sprightly figure and gaudy plumage of the 



tracts ; but not, as others have said, low and swampy grounds, at least 

 during the season of incubation." The name of swamp robin would 

 indicate something the reverse of this, and provincial names are generally 

 pretty correct in their application ; different habits may perhaps be 

 sought at different seasons. In " the Barrens of Kentucky they are 

 found in the greatest abundance. They rest upon the ground at night. 

 Their migrations are performed by day, from bush to bush ; and they 

 seem to be much at a loss when a large extent of forest is to be traversed 

 by them. They perform these journeys almost singly. The females set 

 out before the males in autumn, the males before the females in spring ; 

 the latter not appearing in the middle districts until the end of April, a 

 fortnight after the males had arrived." — Ed. 



