176 
BEAUTIFUL BIEDS. 
In the months of March and April the males have 
many violent engagements for their favourite females. 
Early in May, in Pennsylvania, they begin to prepare 
their nest, which is often fixed in a holly, cedar, or 
laurel hush. Outwardly, it is constructed of small twigs, 
tops of dry weeds, and slips of vine hark, and lined 
with stalks of fine grass. The female lays four eggs, 
thickly marked all over with touches of brownish-olive 
on a dull white ground; and they usually raise two 
broods in a season. 
Exclusively pertaining to the American continent 
is a family, or rather sub-family, of richly plumaged 
birds, comprising several genera and a considerable 
number of species. The Tanacjrince, or Tanagers, 
compose perhaps the most numerous as well as the 
most diversified group of the Fringillince. There is a 
great diversity of form in the bill, which does not 
in any species exhibit that regular conic form so highly 
characteristic of the last group, and of the Pinches in 
general ; the cul- 
men or upper ridge 
is considerably 
more curved than 
the gonys ; or, in 
other words, the 
culmen is more 
curved dovmwards 
than the gonys is 
upwards. There is also a distinct and well-defined 
notch at the end of the upper mandible. In some 
species the commissure is slightly sinuated, and the 
sides swollen ; others have an angulated or tooth- 
