BLUE GROSBEAK. 279 
having 1 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 confine- 
ment. 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, 
lead colour ; bill, a dusky bluish horn colour ; eye, large, 
full, and black. 
The female is of a dark drab colour, tinged with 
blue, and considerably lightest below. I suspect the 
males are subject to a change of colour during winter. 
The young, as usual with many other species, do not 
receive the blue colour until the ensuing spring, and, 
till then, very much resemble the female. 
Latham makes two varieties of this species ; the first, 
wholly blue, except a black spot between the bill and 
eye ; this bird inhabits Brazil, and is figured by Brisson, 
Ornithology , iii, 321, No. 6, pi. 17, fig. 2. The other 
is also generally of a fine deep blue, except the quills, 
tail, and legs, which are black ; this is Edwards’s “ blue 
grosbeak, from Angola,” pi. 125 ; which Dr Latham 
suspects to have been brought from some of the Brazi- 
lian settlements, and considers both as mere varieties of 
the first. I am sorry I cannot clear up this matter. 
