EVENING GROSBEAK. Bei 
separated, but pass very insensibly into each other; thus the 
black of the crown passes into the dark brown of the necl, 
which, becoming lighter by degrees, is blended with the yellow 
of the back. he same thing takes place beneath, where the 
olive brown of the breast passes by the nicest gradations into 
the yellow of the posterior parts ; the whole base of the plu- 
mage is pale bluish plumbeous, white before the tips of the 
feathers ; the femorals are black, skirted with yellow; the 
wings are four and a half inches long; the smaller, middling, 
and exterior larger wing-coverts, are deep black, as well as 
the spurious wing; those nearest the body are white, black at 
the origin only ; the quills are deep black, the three outer 
being subequal and longest, attenuated on their outer web 
at the point, and inconspicuously tipt with whitish ; the 
secondaries are marked with white on their inner web, that 
colour extending more and more as they approach the body, 
the four or five nearest being entirely pure white, like their 
immediate coverts, and slightly and inconspicuously edged 
with yellow externally ; the tail is two and a half inches long, 
slightly forked, and, as well as its long superior coverts, very 
deep black ; the outer feather on each side has, on the inner 
vane, towards the tip, a large, roundish, white spot, which seems 
disposed to become obliterated, as 1t is much more marked on 
one than on that of the other side which corresponds to it, 
and does not exist in all specimens; a similar spot is per- 
ceptible on the second tail-feather, where it is, however, nearly 
obliterated ; the feet are flesh-colour, the nails blackish, the 
tarsus measuring three-quarters of an inch. 
No difference of any consequence is observable between the 
sexes, though it might be said that the female is a little less 
in size, and rather duller in plumage. 
