The young male bears a considerable resemblance to the female, differing chiefly in wanting the black bands on the throat, and in having the upper parts much lighter, and the lower more yellow. Bill yellow; iris hazel; feet flesh-colour, claws dusky. Head and cheeks light greyish-brown, the rest of the upper parts of a paler tint, slightly tinged with yellow on the margins. The wings and tail are black, as in the female, and similarly spotted with white, but tinged with yellow. The lower parts are yellowish-grey, the sides of the neck and the axillars pale yellow, the abdomen and lower tail-coverts white.
The young male has been described as the adult female by Mr Swainson in the Fauna Boreali-Americana, and has been made a distinct species by M. Lesson, under the name of Coccothraustes Bonapartii. The Prince of Musignano, it is observed, has erred in stating that “no difference of any consequence is observable between the sexes; though it might be said that the female is a little less in size, and rather duller in plumage.”
BLACK-HEADED GROSBEAK.
Fringilla melanocephala.
PLATE CCCLXXIII. Male and Female.
The following account of this Grosbeak affords another proof of the ardent zeal of my excellent friend Thomas Nuttall, who, though more especially engaged with botany on his recent journey to the Columbia, has not neglected opportunities of noting many interesting facts relative to birds.
“On the central table-land of the Rocky Mountains, and on the upper branches of the Colorado of the west, we first heard the powerful song of this most delightful Finch. From thence, in the thick groves of all the streams on our western course to the borders of the Columbia, and throughout the dense forests of that river nearly to the sea, we were frequently cheered amidst the wildest desolation by the inimitable voice of this melodious bird. Jealous of all intrusion on his lonely and wild haunts, it was seldom that we had the opportunity of witnessing this almost fairy musician, which gave a charm to the saddest gloom, and made the very woods as it were re-echo to his untiring song. With the modesty of superior merit, and almost with the solicitude of the Nightingale, our favourite Finch seeks the darkest thicket of the deepest forest. The moment his eye rests on the intruding observer he flits off in haste, calls to his mate, and plunging into the thicket sits in silence till he is satisfied of the restoration of solitude, when he again cautiously mounts the twig and pours out afresh the oft-told but never-tiring tale of his affection and devotion to the joys of nature. His song, which greatly resembles that of the Red-breasted Grosbeak, is heard at early dawn, and at intervals nearly to the close of night. It is a loud, varied, high-toned and melodious fife, which rises and falls in the sweetest cadence; but always, like the song of the nightingale, leaves a sensation of pleasing sadness on the ear, which fascinates more powerfully than the most cheering hilarity. In fact, the closing note of our bird is often so querulous as to appear like the shrill cry of appealing distress: it sinks at last so faintly, yet still so charmingly on the sense. When seen, which is only by accident, he sits conspicuously on some lofty bough, below the summit of the tree, and raising his head, and swelling his throat with a rising motion, almost amounting to a flutter, he appears truly rapt in ecstacy, and seems to enjoy his own powers of melody as much as the listener. Even the cruel naturalist, ever eager to add another trophy to his favourite science, feels arrested by his appeal, and connives at his escape from the clutch of the collector.
“About the month of July, in the Rocky Mountains, I observed the female feeding her fledged young, and they also spent the summer in the thickest branches, but with the nest and eggs I am unacquainted. The song, as I have heard it, in the forests of Columbia, seems to be like the syllables ’tait, weet, teet, weowit, teet weowit, teet weeowit, verr, and sometimes terminating weet, weet, weet, every note a loud tender trill of the utmost sweetness, delivered in his own “wood-notes wild,” mocking nothing, but still exulting in his powers, which, while exerted, seem to silence every songster around. The Robin seems almost his pupil in song and similarity of expression, but falls short, and after our Orpheus, seems at best but a faultering scholar.”
Guiraca melanocephala, Swainson.
Adult Male. Plate CCCLXXIII. Figs. 2, 3.
Bill rather short, very robust, bulging at the base, conical, acute; upper mandible with its dorsal outline a little convex, the sides rounded, the edges sharp, ascending from the base to beyond the nostrils, then deflected with a slight median festoon, and an obscure notch close to the tip; lower mandible with the angle short and very broad, the dorsal line straight, the back very broad at the base, the sides high and convex, the edges inflected, the tip acute. Nostrils basal, roundish, partly concealed by the feathers.