Mr. Hill adds that the Grass Finch very frequently selects a shrub on which the wasps have built, fixing the entrance close to their cells. Mr. Gosse states that the only note of this species is a single harsh guttural squeak, difficult either to imitate or to describe. GENUS PYRRHULOXIA, BONAP. _Pyrrhuloxia_, BONAPARTE, Conspectus, 1850, 500. (Type, _Cardinalis sinuatus_, BON.) GEN. CHAR. The bill is very short and much curved, the culmen forming an arc of a circle of 60 degrees or more, and ending at a right angle with the straight gonys; the commissure abruptly much angulated anterior to the nostrils in its middle point; the lower jaw very much wider than the upper, and wider than the gonys is long; anterior portion of commissure straight. Tarsus longer than middle toe; outer lateral toes longer, not reaching the base of the middle; wing considerably rounded, first quill longer than secondaries. Tail much longer than the wing, graduated; the feathers broad, truncate. Head crested. [Line drawing: _Pyrrhuloxia sinuata._ 6370] _Color._ Gray, with red feathers and patches. The essential character of this genus lies in the greatly curved, very short, and broad bill, something like that of _Pyrrhula_. In other respects like _Cardinalis_, but with less graduated wing, and longer and broader tail. Pyrrhuloxia sinuata, BONAP. TEXAS CARDINAL. _Cardinalis sinuatus_, BP. Pr. Zoöl. Soc. Lond. V, 1837, 111 (Mexico).—LAWRENCE, Ann. N. Y. Lyc. V, 1851, 116.—CASSIN, Illust. I, VII, 1854, 204, pl. xxxiii. _Pyrrhuloxia sinuata_, BON. Consp. 1850, 500.—BAIRD, Birds N. Am. 1858, 508.—HEERM. X, c. 16.—COOPER, Orn. Cal. 1, 236. SP. CHAR. Head with an elongated, pointed crest, springing from the crown. Upper parts generally pale ashy-brown; hood, sides of neck, and under parts of body, rather paler. Long crest-feathers, bill all round including lores and encircling the eye, wing and tail, dark crimson. Chin and upper part of throat, breast, and median line of the belly, under tail-coverts, tibia, edge and inner coverts of the wings, bright carmine-red. Bill yellowish. Length, about 8.50; wing, 3.75; tail, 4.50. _Female_ similar, with the under part brownish-yellow; middle of belly and throat only tinged with red. HAB. Valley of the Rio Grande of Texas and westward; Cape St. Lucas; Mazatlan, Mexico. [Illustration: _Pyrrhuloxia sinuata._] The wing is considerably rounded, the fourth and fifth quills longest; the first as long as the secondaries, the second longer than the seventh. The tail is long, graduated on the sides, the outer about half an inch shorter than the middle. The feathers are very broad to the end and obliquely truncate. They are rather broader than in _Cardinalis virginianus_. The crest is narrower and longer, and confined to the middle of the crown; it extends back about 1.80 inches from the base of the bill.