282 
FRINGILLA PURPUREA. 
sides under the wings, streaked with dull reddish; 
legs, a dirty purplish flesh colour; bill, short, strong, 
conical, and of a dusky horn colour; iris, dark hazel; 
the feathers covering the ears are more dusky red than 
the other parts of the head. This is the male when 
arrived at his full colours. The female is nearly of the 
same size, of a brown olive or flaxen colour, streaked 
with dusky black ; the head, seamed with lateral lines 
of whitish ; above and below the hind part of the ear 
feathers, are two streaks of white ; the breast is whitish, 
streaked with a light flax colour; tail and wings, as in 
the male, only both edged with dull brown, instead of 
red ; belly and vent, white. This is also the colour of 
the young during the first, and to at least the end of 
the second season, when the males begin to become 
lighter yellowish, which gradually brightens to crimson ; 
the female always retains nearly the same appearance. 
The young male bird of the first year may be distin- 
guished from the female by the tail of the former being 
edged with olive green, that of the latter with brown. 
It is matter of doubt with me whether this species 
ought not to be classed with the loxia : the great thick** 
ness of the bill, and similarity that prevails between 
this and the pine grosbeak, almost induced me to adopt 
it into that class. But respect for other authorities has 
prevented me from making this alteration. 
When these birds are taken in their crimson dress, 
and kept in a cage till they moult their feathers, they 
uniformly change to their present appearance, and 
sometimes never after receive their red colour. They 
are also subject, if well fed, to become so fat as literally 
to die of corpulency, of which I have seen several in- 
stances; being at these times subject to something 
resembling apoplexy, from which they sometimes re^ 
cover in a few minutes, but oftener expire in the same 
space of time. 
The female is entirely without red, and differs from 
the present only in having less yellow about her. 
These birds regularly arrive from the north, where 
they breed, in September, and visit us from the south 
