PINE GROSBEAK. 
285 
represented the female of too bright a red. It is possible, 
that my specimen of the female might have been a bird 
of the first season, not come to its full colours. Those 
figured by Mr Edwards* were both brought from 
Hudson’s Bay, and appear to he the same with the one 
now before us, though his colouring of the female differs 
materially from his description. 
If this, as Mr Pennant asserts, be the same species 
with that of the eastern continent, it w r ould seem to 
inhabit almost the whole extent of the arctic regions. 
It is found in the north of Scotland, where Pennant 
suspects it breeds. It inhabits Europe as far north as 
Drontheim; is common in all the pine forests of Asia, 
in Siberia, and the north of Russia; is taken in autumn 
about Petersburg, and brought to market in great num- 
bers. It returns to Lapland in spring; is found in 
Newfoundland ; and on the western coast of North 
America, f 
Were I to reason from analogy, I would say, that 
from the great resemblance of this bird to the purple 
finch, (fringilla “purpurea ,) it does not attain its full 
plumage until the second summer ; and is subject to 
considerable change of colour in moulting, which may 
have occasioned all the differences we find concerning 
it in different authors. But this is actually ascertained 
to be the case ; for Mr Edwards saw two of these birds 
alive in London, in cages; the person in whose custody 
they were, said they came from Norway ; that they 
had moulted their feathers, and were not afterw ards so 
beautiful as they w r ere at first. One of them, he says, 
w r as coloured very much like the greenfinch, ( F , . chlo- 
rosis.') The purple finch, though much smaller, has the 
rump, head, back, and breast, nearly of the same colour 
as the pine grosbeak, feeds in the same manner, on the 
same food, and is also subject to like changes of colour. 
* Edwards, vol. iii, p. 124. 
f Pennant. 
