The eggs of this species are of an oblong-oval shape, one end but slightly more rounded than the other, and measure 1.10 of an inch in length by .65 in breadth. They have a bluish-green ground, blotched and splashed with markings of a rusty-brown, for the most part more numerous about the larger end.
Genus GUIRACA, Swainson.
Guiraca, Swainson, Zoöl. Jour. III, Nov. 1827, 350. (Type, Loxia cærulea, L.)
Coccoborus, Swainson, Class. Birds, II, 1837, 277. (Same type.)
Guiraca cærulea.
6480 ♂
Gen. Char. Bill very large, nearly as high as long; the culmen slightly curved, with a rather sharp ridge; the commissure conspicuously angulated just below the nostril, the posterior leg of the angle nearly as long as the anterior, both nearly straight. Lower jaw deeper than the upper, and extending much behind the forehead; the width greater than the length of the gonys, considerably wider than the upper jaw. A prominent knob in the roof of the mouth. Tarsi shorter than the middle toe; the outer toe a little longer, reaching not quite to the base of the middle claw; hind toe rather longer than to this base. Wings long, reaching the middle of the tail; the secondaries and tertials nearly
equal; the second quill longest; the first less than the fourth. Tail very nearly even, shorter than the wings.
The single North American species of this genus has no near relative in tropical America; indeed, no other species at present known can be said to be strictly congeneric.
In all essential details of external structure, and in every respect as to habits and nidification, the type of the genus (G. cærulea) is much more like the species of Cyanospiza than those of Hedymeles, with which latter it has usually been included.