In the months of March and April the males have many violent engagements for their favourite females. Early in May, in Pennsylvania, they begin to prepare their nest, which is often fixed in a holly, cedar, or laurel bush. Outwardly, it is constructed of small twigs, tops of dry weeds, and slips of vine bark, and lined with stalks of fine grass. The female lays four eggs, thickly marked all over with touches of brownish-olive on a dull white ground; and they usually raise two broods in a season.

Exclusively pertaining to the American continent is a family, or rather sub-family, of richly plumaged birds, comprising several genera and a considerable number of species. The Tanagrine, or Tanagers, compose perhaps the most numerous as well as the most diversified group of the Fringillina. There is a great diversity of form in the bill, which does not in any species exhibit that regular conic form so highly characteristic of the last group, and of the Finches in

general; the culmen or upper ridge is considerably more curved than the gonys; or, in other words, the culmen is more curved downwards than the gonys is

upwards. There is also a distinct and well-defined notch at the end of the upper mandible. In some species the commissure is slightly sinuated, and the sides swollen; others have an angulated or tooth

like lobe in the middle, which folds over the edge of the lower mandible. The differences in the form of the bill are numerous; even in the same sub-genus there is a great dissimilarity between the bills of the different species.

The whole of these birds, so far as has been yet ascertained, are natives of the warmer parts of America, abounding most in those regions which lie nearest the equinoctial line. They are in general small birds, the largest being intermediate between a Sparrow and a Thrush, while the majority do not exceed the size of a Linnet; some few are even smaller. "It is quite evident," observes Mr. Swainson, "from the great strength of bill possessed by some, and the notch which is conspicuous in all, that these birds feed both upon seeds and creeping insects picked from the branches of trees; for very few of them are ever seen upon the ground. Their colours in general are bright, and, in a large number, particularly rich and beautiful. The little birds forming the genus Aglaia, in fact, are ornamented with the most vivid hues, or glossed with rich reflections of gold, rendering them inferior only to the humming-birds. Some possess considerable vocal powers; and the notes of the sub-genus Euphonia, as its name implies, are said to be particularly musical."*

One of the most splendid of these birds is the Scarlet Tanager (Phænisoma rubra), whose whole plumage, except the wings and tail, is of the most vivid carmine-red. Wing-coverts, posterior secondaries, and middle tail-feathers, black; the primaries, adjoin

* Classification of Birds.

N

ing secondaries, and lateral tail-feathers, brown ; insides of the wings and tail beneath, grey. Bill, pale horn-colour. Irides cream yellow. Legs, bluishgrey. The male, after the autumn moult, is dappled with greenish-yellow. The female is of a dull green inclining to yellow; the wings and tail, brownish-black, edged with green. Total length about seven inches.

This, says Wilson, is one of the gaudy foreigners. (and perhaps the most showy) that regularly visit us from the torrid regions of the south. He is drest in the richest scarlet, set off with the most jetty black, and comes, over extensive countries, to sojourn for a time with us.

On or about the 1st of May this bird makes his appearance in Pennsylvania. He spreads over the United States, and is found even in Canada. He I rarely approaches the habitations of man, unless perhaps to the orchard, where he sometimes builds; or to the cherry-trees in search of fruit. The depth of the woods is his favourite abode. There, among the thick foliage of the tallest trees, his simple and almost monotonous notes, chip, churr, repeated at short intervals, in a pensive tone, may be occasionally heard, which appear to proceed from a considerable distance, though the bird be immediately above you: a faculty bestowed upon him by the beneficent Author of Nature, no doubt, for his protection, to compensate, in a degree, for the danger to which his glowing colour would often expose him. Besides this usual note, he has, at times, a more musical chant, something resembling in mellowness that of the Baltimore Oriole. His food consists of large winged insects,

such as wasps, hornets, and humble-bees, and also of fruit, particularly those of that species of Vaccinium usually called huckle-berries, which, in their season, form almost his whole fare. His nest is built about horizontal branch of a

the middle of May, on the tree, sometimes an apple-tree, and is but slightly put together: stalks of broken flax, and dry grass, so thinly woven together that the light is easily perceivable through it, form the repository of his young. The eggs are three, of a dull brown, spotted with brown or purple. They rarely raise more than four broods in a season, and leave us for the south about the last week in August.

Among all the birds that inhabit our woods, there is none that strikes the eye of a stranger, or even a native, with so much brilliancy as this. Seen among the green leaves, with the light falling strongly on his plumage, he really appears beautiful. If he has little melody in his notes to charm us, he has nothing in them to disgust. His manners are modest, easy, and inoffensive. He commits no depredations on the property of the husbandman, but rather benefits him by the daily destruction, in spring, of many noxious insects; and when winter approaches he is no plundering dependant, but seeks, in a distant country, for that sustenance which the severity of the season denies to his industry in this. He is a striking ornament to our rural scenery, and none of the meanest of our rural songsters.*

The last division of the Fringillida is composed of the Bullfinches, forming the sub-family Pyrrhulinæ.

* American Ornithology.

These birds are distinguished by a very short bill, the breadth of which is often greater than its length. The commissure of the bill, in nearly the whole of the genera, is very much curved, and the upper mandible, or rather the culmen, arched from its base. The feet have the tarsus shorter than the middle toe; and the front toes are entirely divided, Wing, short, the three first quills nearly of equal length. Their food consists principally of seeds, berries, and kernels; and though the smaller species confine themselves for the most part to grain or seeds, which they open, rejecting the husk, some of the foreign species, as Temminck observes, have the bill excessively large and strong, and capable of fracturing the most ligneous seed-cases. One genus Loxia exhibits a beautiful adaptation of structure to the peculiar food upon which it is appointed to subsist. The extremities of the two mandibles, which are rather long, are crossed, which enables them, by the exercise of the peculiar muscular power by which the mandibles are moved, to extract the seeds from the cones of pines and firs, on which they principally subsist. The points of the

mandible are capable of being brought together, and are then inserted beneath the scales of the fir cones: on the mandibles being closed,

the scales are wrenched open by the points acting in different directions, and the seed secured and raised within the bill by means of the tongue. The mandibles are crossed in different directions in different individuals. In some specimens the upper mandible