A History of North American Birds, Land Birds. Volume 2. Robert Ridgway
lined with roots, placed in the branches of bushes. The eggs, four in number, he describes as of a greenish-blue ground, marked with irregular spots of umber-brown, varying in intensity of shade.
The song of the western species is described by Mr. Nuttall as fully equal, if not superior, to that of the Rose-breasted. He met with it on the central table-lands of the Rocky Mountains, along the upper branches of the Colorado River, where he found it frequenting the thick groves of the streams, and where, throughout its dense forests, the powerful song and the inimitable voice of this “most delightful Finch” cheered that naturalist amidst the wildest desolation of that “forest primeval,” where this superb vocalist made the woods echo and re-echo to its untiring song. These notes, greatly resembling those of its eastern relative, may be heard from early dawn almost even to the close of the following night. These are described as loud, varied, high-toned, and melodious, rising and falling with the sweetest cadence, fascinating the listener most powerfully with sensations of a pleasing sadness, its closing note seeming like a shrill cry of appealing distress, and then sinking faintly on the ear. It is described as very shy and retiring in its habits, and can be but very rarely observed closely while thus engaged in song. On these occasions the bird is said to sit up conspicuously on a lofty bough, near the summit of the tree, his throat swelling with the excitement, and seeming to take a great delight in the sound of his own music.
Mr. Sumichrast found this bird on the Plateau of Mexico, and also in the alpine regions of Vera Cruz. It was found to the height of 8,300 feet, and never lower than 4,000.
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.
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.
Loxia cærulea, Linn. Syst. Nat. I, 1766, 306.—Wilson, Am. Orn. III, 1811, 78, pl. xxiv, f. 6.—? Wagler, Isis, 1831, 525. Guiraca cærulea, Swainson, Birds Mex. in Phil. Mag. I, 1827, 438.—Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 499.—Cooper, Orn. Cal. 1, 230. Fringilla cærulea, Aud. Orn. Biog. II, 1834, 140; V, 508, pl. cxxii. Coccoborus cæruleus, Sw. Birds II, 1837, 277.—Aud. Syn. 1839.—Ib. Birds Am. III, 1841, 204, pl. cciv.—Cabanis, Mus. Hein. 1851, 152.—Finsch, Abh. Nat. Brem. 1870, 339 (Mazatlan). Cyanoloxia cærulea, Bp. Conspectus, 1850, 502. Goniaphæa cærulea, Bp. Blue Grosbeak, Pennant, Arc. Zoöl. II, 1785, 351.
Guiraca cærulea.
Sp. Char. Brilliant blue; darker across the middle of the back. Space around base of the bill and lores, with tail-feathers, black. Two bands on the wing across the tips of the middle and secondary coverts, with outer edges of tertiaries, reddish-brown, or perhaps chestnut. Feathers on the posterior portion of the under surface tipped narrowly with grayish-white. Length, 7.25; wing, 3.50; tail, 2.80.
Female yellowish-brown above, brownish-yellow beneath; darkest across the breast. Wing-coverts and tertials broadly edged with brownish-yellow. Sometimes a faint trace of blue on the tail. The young resembles the female.
Hab. More southern United States from Atlantic to Pacific, south to Costa Rica. Xalapa (Scl. 1859, 365); Oaxaca (Scl. 1859, 378); Cordova (Scl. 1856, 301); Cuba (Cab. J. IV, 9); Vera Paz (Salvin, Ibis, III, 352); Costa Rica (Lawr. IX, 102); Vera Cruz, winter (Sum. M. B. S. I, 552); Yucatan (Lawr. IX, 200).
The species described as Cyanospiza parellina in the Birds of North America, but which so far has not been actually detected north of Mexico, is a miniature Guiraca, more related, however, to the G. concreta than to cærulea. It is easily distinguished from the latter by more lobed bill, darker back and under parts, absence of rufous wing-bands, and inferior size. Length, 5 inches; wing, 2.50.
Males from the Pacific coast region (California, Colima, etc.) have tails considerably longer than eastern specimens, while those from California are of a much lighter and less purplish blue, the difference being much the same as between Sialia sialis and S. azurea.
Autumnal and winter males have the feathers generally, especially on the back and breast, tipped with light brown, obscuring somewhat the blue, though producing a beautiful appearance.
Habits. The Blue Grosbeak, though more a bird of the Southern States, is also one both of an extended and of an irregular distribution. It was even met with one year in the vicinity of Calais, Me., although none have been known to occur in any part of the country between that point and New York City. It is found from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast.
The extent to which it is distributed throughout California is inferred, rather than known. Dr. Cooper noticed one at Fort Mohave, May 6, and afterwards saw many more frequenting the trees and bushes along the river, and singing a lively song, which he compares with that of the Carpodacus frontalis. He also saw them at Los Angeles and at Santa Barbara, and states that they were found at Pit River, in the extreme northeastern part of the State, by Dr. Newberry. They were observed to frequent the banks of streams crossing the great interior plains and deserts, where there was little vegetation except a few bushes.
The Blue Grosbeak was only met with by Mr. Ridgway and his party at Sacramento. It does not occur—or, if so, it was not seen—in the interior so far to the north as the route of Mr. King’s survey. At Sacramento it was found frequenting the same localities as the Cyanospiza amæna, and appeared to be characteristic of the cottonwood copses. Their nests were found between the 18th and the 29th of June, and were all in similar situations. These were built in small cottonwood-trees, on the edge of the copse, and were all about six feet from the ground.
Mr. John Burroughs, in one of his charming popular essays10 on the general habits of our birds, refers to their occasional preference, in sites for their nests, of the borders of frequented roadsides, and mentions finding a nest of the Blue Grosbeak among the trees that line one of the main streets and fashionable drives leading out of Washington City, less than half a mile from the boundary. There, he states, this bird, which, according to Audubon’s observations, is shy and recluse, affecting remote marshes and the borders of large ponds of stagnant water, had placed its nest in the lowest twig of the lowest branch of a large sycamore immediately over a great thoroughfare, and so near the ground that a person standing in a cart or sitting on a horse could have reached it with his hand. The nest was composed mainly of fragments of newspaper and stalks of grass, and though so low, was remarkably well concealed by one of
Atlantic Monthly, XXIII, p. 707.