190 CARDINAL GROSBEAK. 
female lays four eggs, thickly marked all over with touches of 
brownish olive, on a dull white ground, as represented in the 
figure ; and they usually raise two brood in the season. These 
birds are rarely raised from the nest for singing, being so 
easily taken in trap-cages, and soon domesticated. By long 
confinement, and perhaps unnatural food, they are found to 
fade in colour, becoming of a pale whitish red. If well taken 
care of, however, they will live to a considerable age. There 
is at present in Mr Peale’s museum, the stuffed skin of one of 
these birds, which is there said to have lived in a cage upwards 
of twenty-one years. 
The opinion which so generally prevails in England, that 
the music of the groves and woods of America is far inferior 
to that of Europe, I, who have a thousand times listened to 
both, cannot admit to be correct. We cannot with fairness 
draw a comparison between the depth of the forest in America, 
and the cultivated fields of England ; because it is a well 
known fact, that singing birds seldom frequent the former in 
any country. But let the latter places be compared with the 
like situations in the United States, and the superiority of 
song, I am fully persuaded, would justly belong to the western 
continent. The few of our song birds that have visited Europe i 
extort admiration from the best judges. 44 The notes of the 
Cardinal Grosbeak,” says Latham, 44 are almost equal to those 
of the Nightingale.” Yet these notes, clear and excellent as they 
are, are far inferior to those of the Wood Thrush ; and even 
to those of the Brown Thrush, or Thrasher. Our inimitable 
Mocking Bird is also acknowledged, by themselves, to be fully ' 
equal to the song of the Nightingale, 44 in its whole compass.” 
Yet these are not one-tenth of the number of our singing : 
birds. Could these people be transported to the borders of 
our woods and settlements, in the month of May, about half 
an hour before sunrise, such a ravishing concert would greet 
their ear as they have no conception of. 
The males of the Cardinal Grosbeak, when confined together 
in a cage, fight violently. On placing a looking-glass before 
