BLACK-HEADED GROSBEAK. 
215 
out never-tiring tale of his affection and devotion to the joys of nature. His 
song, which greatly resembles that of the Red-breasted Grosbeak, is heard 
at early dawn, and at intervals nearly to the close of night. It is a loud, 
varied, high-toned, and melodious fife, which rises and falls in the sweetest 
cadence; but always, like the song of the Nightingale, leaves a sensation of 
pleasing sadness on the ear, which fascinates more powerfully than the most 
cheering hilarity. In fact, the closing note of our bird is often so querulous 
as to appear like the shrill cry of appealing distress; it sinks at last so faintly, 
yet still so charmingly on the sense. When seen, which is only by accident, 
he sits conspicuously on some lofty bough, below the summit of the tree, and 
raising his head, and swelling his throat with a rising motion, almost amount- 
ing to a flutter, he appears truly rapt in ecstacv, and seems to enjoy his own 
powers of melody as much as the listener. Even the cruel naturalist, ever 
eager to add another trophy to his favourite science, feels arrested by his 
appeal, and connives at his escape from the clutch of the collector. 
“ About the month of July, in the Rocky Mountains, I observed the 
female feeding her fledged young, and they also spent the summer in the 
thickest branches, but with the nest and eggs I am unacquainted. The song, 
as I have heard it, in the forests of Columbia, seems to be like the syllables, 
Hait, weet , teet, weowit, teet weowit , teet weowit, verr, and sometimes ter- 
minating weet, weet, weet, every note a loud tender trill of the utmost 
sweetness, delivered in his own ‘ wood-notes wild,’ mocking nothing, but 
still exulting in his powers, which, while exerted, seem to silence every 
songster around. The Robin seems almost his pupil in song and similarity 
of expression, but falls short, and after our Orpheus, seems at best but a 
faltering scholar.” 
Male, 83, wing 4^. 
Central table-land of Rocky Mountains. Common. Migratory. 
Black-headed Grosbeak, Fringilla melanocephala, Aud. Orn. Biog., vol. iv. p. 
519 . 
Guiraca melanocephala, Swainson. 
Adult Male. 
Bill rather short, very robust, bulging at the base, conical, acute; upper 
mandible with its dorsal outline a little convex, the sides rounded, the edges 
sharp, ascending from the base to beyond the nostrils, then deflected with a 
slight median festoon, and an obscure notch close to the tip; lower mandible 
with the angle short and very broad, the dorsal line straight, the back very 
broad at the base, the sides high and convex, the edges inflected, the tip 
acute. Nostrils basal, roundish, partly concealed by the feathers. 
Head large, roundish-ovate; neck short; body rather full. Legs of mode- 
