EVENING GROSBEAK. 
435 
The evening grosbeak is eight and a half inches long ; its 
bill is of a greenish yellow, brighter on the margins, seven- 
eighths of an inch long, five-eighths broad, the same in height ; 
the capistrum and lora are black ; the front is widely bright 
yellow, prolonged in a broad stripe over the eye to the ears ; 
the hind crown is black, intermixed with yellow, visible only 
on separating the feathers, but leading to the suspicion that at 
some period the yellow extends perhaps all over the crown ; 
the sides and inferior parts of the head, the whole neck, above 
and beneath, together with the interscapulars and breast, are 
of a dark olive brown, becoming lighter by degrees ; the sca- 
pulars are yellow, slightly tinged with greenish ; the back, 
rump, with the whole lateral and inferior surface, including the 
under wing and under tail-coverts, yellow, purer on the rump, 
and somewhat tinged with olive-brown on the belly. Although 
these colours are all very pure, they are not definitely separa- 
ted, but pass very insensibly into each other ; thus the black of 
the crown passes into the dark brown of the neck, which, be- 
coming lighter by degrees, is blended with the yellow of the 
back. The 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 plumage 
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 exte- 
rior 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 tipped with whitish ; the secondaries are mark- 
ed 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 
