278 
ROSE-BREASTED GROSBEAK. 
which it eagerly feeds. Some of its trivial names would 
import, that it is also an inhabitant of Louisiana ; but I have 
not heard of its being seen in any of the southern states. A 
gentleman of Middleton, Connecticut, informed me, that he 
kept one of these birds for some considerable time in a cage, and 
observed that it frequently sang at night, and all night ; that 
its notes were extremely clear and mellow, and the sweetest 
of any bird with which he is acquainted. 
The bird from which the figure on the plate was taken, was 
shot, late in April, on the borders of a swamp, a few miles 
from Philadelphia. Another male of the same species was 
killed at the same time, considerably different in its markings ; f 
a proof that they do not acquire their full colours until at least 
the second spring or summer. 
The Rose-breasted Grosbeak is eight inches and a half 
long, and thirteen inches in extent ; the whole upper parts are 
black, except the second row of wing-coverts, which are broadly 
tipt with white ; a spot of the same extends over the primaries, 
immediately below their coverts ; chin, neck, and upper part 
of the breast, black ; lower part of the breast, middle of the 
belly, and lining of the wings, a fine light carmine, or rose 
colour ; tail, forked, black, the three exterior feathers, on each 
side, white on their inner vanes for an inch or more from the 
tips ; bill, like those of its tribe, very thick and strong, and 
pure white ; legs and feet, light blue ; eyes, hazel. The 
young male of the first spring has the plumage of the back 
variegated with light brown, white and black ; a line of white 
must now stand. The generic appellation has also been various, and the 
necessity of some decided one cannot be better shewn, than in the different 
opinions expressed by naturalists, who have placed it in three or four of the 
known genera, without being very well satisfied with any of its situations. 
Gmelin and Latham have even placed the young and old in different genera, 
Loxia and Fringilla ; by Brisson, it is a Coccothraustes ; and by Sabine, a 
Phyrrhula. It appears a form exclusively American, supplanting the Cocco- 
thraustes of Asia and the Indian continent, and Guiraca has been appropriated 
to it by Mr Swainson, in which will also range the Cardinal and Blue Gros- 
beaks of our author. — Ed. 
