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FEMALE ROSE-BREASTED GROSBEAK. 
but not having stated any particulars about the habits of the 
species, we shall subjoin the little that is known of them. 
Though long since recorded to be an inhabitant of Louisiana, 
whence it was first received in Europe, recent observations, and 
the opinion of Wilson, had rendered this doubtful, and it was 
believed to be altogether an Arctic bird, averse to the warm 
climate of the Southern states, and hardly ever appearing even 
in the more temperate. Its recent discovery in Mexico is 
therefore a very interesting and no less remarkable fact, and 
we may safely conclude that this bird migrates extensively 
according to season, spending the summer in the north, or in 
the mountains, and breeding there; and in winter retiring south¬ 
ward, or descending into the plains; being however by no means 
numerous in any known district, or at any season, though perhaps 
more frequent on the borders of Lake Ontario. Its favourite 
abode is large forests, where it affects the densest and most 
gloomy retreats. The nest is placed among the thick foliage 
of trees, and is constructed of twigs outside, and lined with fine 
grasses within; the female lays four or five white eggs, spotted 
with brown. This may also be called an “Evening Grosbeak,” 
for it also sings during the solemn stillness of night, uttering a 
* 
clear, mellow, and harmonious note. 
We have placed this species in our subgenus Coccothraustes. It 
is probably because he laboured under the mistake that all the 
Grosbeaks removed from Loxia had been placed in Pyrrhula by 
Temminck, that Mr. Sabine has made it a Bullfinch: and in truth 
the bill very much resembles those of that genus, so that the 
species is intermediate between the two. Mr. Swainson places 
it, together with the Blue Grosbeak, Fringilla ( Coccothraustes ) 
ccerulea, in a new genus which he calls Guiraca , but without as yet 
characterizing it. These species have, it is true, a bill somewhat 
different from that of the typical Coccothraustes , (as may be seen 
