Length -- 7.75 to 8.5 inches. About one-fifth smaller than the
robin.
Male -- Head and upper parts black. Breast has rose-carmine
shield-shaped patch, often extending downward to the centre of
the abdomen. Underneath, tail quills, and two spots on wings
white. Conspicuous yellow, blunt beak.
Female -- Brownish, with dark streakings, like a sparrow. No
rose-color. Light sulphur yellow under wings. Dark brown, heavy
beak.
Range -- Eastern North America, from southern Canada to Panama.
Migrations -- Early May. September. Summer resident.
A certain ornithologist tells with complacent pride of having shot over
fifty-eight rose-breasted grosbeaks in less than three weeks (during the
breeding season) to learn what kind of food they had in their crops. This kind
of devotion to science may have quite as much to do with the growing scarcity
of this bird in some localities as the demands of the milliners, who, however,
receive all of the blame for the slaughter of our beautiful songsters. The
farmers in Pennsylvania, who, with more truth than poetry, call this the
potato-bug bird, are taking active measures, however, to protect the neighbor
that is more useful to their crop than all the insecticides known. It also
eats flies, wasps, and grubs.
Seen upon the ground, the dark bird is scarcely attractive with his clumsy
beak overbalancing a head that protrudes with stupid-looking awkwardness; but
as he rises into the trees his lovely rose-colored breast and under-wing
feathers are seen, and before he has had time to repeat his delicious,
rich-voiced warble you are already in love with him. Vibrating his wings after
the manner of the mocking-bird, he pours forth a marvellously sweet, clear,
mellow song (with something of the quality of the oriole's, robin's, and
thrush's notes), making the day on which you first hear it memorable. This is
one of the few birds that sing at night. A soft, sweet, rolling warble, heard
when the moon is at its full on a midsummer night, is more than likely to come
from the rose-breasted grosbeak.
It is not that his quiet little sparrow-like wife has advanced notions of
feminine independence that he takes his turn at sitting upon the nest, but
that he is one of the most unselfish and devoted of mates. With their combined
efforts they construct only a coarse, unlovely cradle in a thorn-bush or low
tree near an old, overgrown pasture lot. The father may be the poorest of
architects, but as he patiently sits brooding over the green, speckled eggs,
his beautiful rosy breast just showing above the grassy rim, he is a succulent
adornment for any bird's home.