BLUE GROSBEAK. 
367 
BLUE GROSBEAK. — LOXIA CCERULEA. 
Plate XXIV. Fig. 6. 
Linn. Syst. 304. — Lath. iii. 116 — Arct. Zool. p. 351, No. 217 Catesb. i. 39. 
Buff. iii. 454, PI. enl. 154. — Peak's Museum, No. 5826. 
GUIRACA CCER ULEA. — Swainson.* 
Fringilla ccerulea, Bonap. Synop. p. 114. 
This solitary and retired species inhabits the warmer parts 
of America, from Guiana, and probably farther south, f to 
Virginia. Mr Bartram also saw it during a summer’s residence 
near Lancaster, Pennsylvania. In the United States, how- 
ever, it is a scarce species ; and having but few notes, is more 
rarely observed. Their most common note is a loud chuck ; 
they have also at times a few low, sweet toned notes. They are 
sometimes kept in cages, in Carolina; but seldom sing in 
confinement. The individual represented in the plate was a 
very elegant specimen, in excellent order, though just arrived 
from Charleston, South Carolina. During its stay with me, 
I fed it on Indian corn, which it seemed to prefer, easily 
breaking with its powerful bill the hardest grains. They also 
feed on hemp seed, millet, and the kernels of several kinds of 
berries. They are timid birds, watchful, silent, and active, 
and generally neat in their plumage. Having never yet met 
with their nest, I am unable at present to describe it. 
The Blue Grosbeak is six inches long, and ten inches in 
extent ; lores and frontlet, black ; whole upper parts, a rich 
purplish blue, more dull on the back, where it is streaked with 
dusky ; greater wing-coverts, black, edged at the tip with bay ; 
next superior row, wholly chestnut ; rest of the wing, black, 
skirted with blue; tail, forked, black, slightly edged with 
bluish, and sometimes minutely tipt with white ; legs and feet, 
* Loxia ccerulea is not figured in the PI. enl. That bird is a Pitylus. 
f Latham, ii. p. 116. 
