438 
FEMALE ROSE-BREASTED GROSBEAK. 
the throat are dotted with dark brown, the dots occupying the 
tips of the feathers ; the breast and flanks are somewhat tinged 
with flaxen, (more dingy on the latter,) and each feather being 
blackish along the middle at tip, those parts appear streaked 
with that colour ; the middle of the throat, the belly, and under 
tail-coverts, are unspotted ; the base of the plumage is every 
where plumbeous ; the wings are rounded, less than four inches 
long, entirely dusky brown, somewhat darker on the spurious 
wing, all the feathers, both quills and coverts, being lighter 
on their edges; the exterior webs of the middle and larger 
wing-coverts are whitish at tip, constituting two white bands 
across the wings ; the primaries are whitish at the origin be- 
neath the spurious wing ; the secondaries are inconspicuously 
whitish externally at tip, that nearest the body having a very 
conspicuous whitish spot; the lower wing-coverts are of a 
bright buff ; and as they are red in the male, afford an excel- 
lent essential character for the species ; the tail is three inches 
long, nearly even, and of a paler dusky brown ; the two outer 
feathers are slightly edged internally with whitish, but without 
the least trace of the large spot so conspicuous in the male, 
and which is always more or less apparent in the young of that 
sex ; the feet are dusky, the tarsus measuring seven-eighths of 
an inch. 
The young male is at first very similar to the female, and is, 
even in extreme youth, paler and somewhat more spotted ; but 
a little of the beautiful rose colour, of which the mother is 
quite destitute, soon begins to make its appearance, principally 
in small dots on the throat : this colour spreads gradually, and 
the wings and tail, and soon after the head, blacken, of course 
presenting as they advance in age a great variety of combina- 
tions. 
For the description of the beautiful adult male, we shall re- 
fer to Wilson, whose description is good, and the figure accu- 
rate, but not having stated any particulars about the habits of 
the species, we shall subjoin the little that is known of them. 
Though long since recorded to be an inhabitant of Louisiana, 
