SCARLET GROSBEAK.

Erythrospiza erythrina, Bonaparte.

 

 

Le Bouvreuil Pallas.

 

 

Havine adopted the genus Hrythrospiza as established by the Prince of Musignano, we feel convinced that
the present bird will form one of this well-marked group, the members of which appear to be so widely
distributed. The Scarlet Grosbeak must not be confounded with the Pring?lla purpurea of Wilson, a bird to
which it bears a resemblance both in habits and in style of colouring. A close examination of the two species

 

will, however, at once satisfy the ornithologist as it respects their non-identity ; and we would further remark,

 

 

that the present bird appears to be strictly confined to the Old World, while the Prngilla purpurea is in like

 

manner restricted to the American continent.

The Scarlet Grosbeak is one of those European birds which are obtained with great difficulty, and of which
very few specimens exist in our museums ; indeed, except our own, which came from Russia, we know of
none in the public or private collections of Great Britain; yet it is a species far from being uncommon
in high northern latitudes, and in some parts of Russia, where, according to M. Temminck, it habitually
frequents gardens, and appears, from the little information we have been able to obtain respecting it, to

 

differ little in manners from our well-known Bullfinch.
The male and female, as will be seen in the Plate, offer a decided difference in their colouring, the male

 

being ornamented by a beautiful deep stain of scarlet over the whole of the plumage which is totally wanting
in the female as well as in the young of both sexes; it is also probable that the male loses this distinguishing
mark in winter and regains it in spring.

The male has the head, neck, and top of the back of a lively crimson, fading off below into a beautiful rose
colour ; the small feathers round the base of the beak and nostrils are also of a dull rose ; the wings and tail
brown, the feathers being edged with deep rose colour ; beak and tarsi brown.

The female has all the upper parts of a brownish grey, with longitudinal dashes of a deeper colour, the
throat and cheeks being blotched with brown ; the under surface white, or nearly so.

The Plate represents an adult male and female of the natural size.