278 ROSE-BREASTED GROSBEAK. 



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 Middleton, 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 Philadelphia. Another male of the same species was 

 killed at the same time, considerably different in its markings ; 

 a proof that they do not acquire their full colours 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 tipt 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 colour ; 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, and black ; 



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 Latham have even 

 placed the young and old in different genera, Loxia and Fringilla ; by 

 Brisson, it is a Goccothraicstes ; and by Sabine, a Phyrrhula. It appears 

 a form exclusively American, supplanting the Coccothraustes of Asia and 

 the Indian continent ; and Guiraca has been appropriated to it by Mr 

 Swainson, in which will also range the cardinal and blue grosbeaks of 

 our author. — Ed. 



