OBSERVATIONS.--The beautiful song of this grosbeak is so like that of the nightingale, that this name has been given it; but its voice is so strong that it pierces the ears. It sings through the whole year, except during the time of moulting. In its wild state, its principal food is the seed of the Indian corn and buck-wheat; it collects a considerable quantity of this food, which it skilfully covers with leaves and twigs, only leaving a very small hole, as the entrance to this magazine. In the cage it is fed with millet, rape seed, hemp seed, and the like, which agree with it very well. Some persons have endeavoured to make it breed in large aviaries in the middle of gardens, but I do not know that it has ever succeeded. In Germany it is very dear, being as much as six or eight pounds sterling for a pair. THE JAVA SPARROW, OR RICE BIRD. Loxia orycivora, LINNÆUS; Le Padda, ou Oiseau de Riz, BUFFON; Der Reiskernbeisser, BECHSTEIN. This bird is about the size of a bullfinch, and five inches in length, of which the tail measures two. The beak is thick, and of a fine rose colour; the feet are paler; the eyelids naked, and edged with rose colour; the head, throat, and streak which surrounds the cheeks, are black; the cheeks are white; the rump, tail, and greater pen-feathers are black, but all the rest of the upper part of the body, the wing-coverts, hinder pen-feathers, and breast, are of a dark grey; the belly purple grey; the lower tail-coverts white. "The whole plumage," says Buffon, "is so well arranged, that no one feather passes another, and they all appear downy, or rather covered with that kind of bloom which you see on plums; this gives them a very beautiful tint." In the female the colours are rather lighter on the back and belly: the young are not only paler, but also irregularly spotted with dark brown on the cheeks and lower part of the belly. OBSERVATIONS.--There are few vessels coming from Java and the Cape of Good Hope that do not bring numbers of these birds, which have as bad a character in those countries, and particularly in China, their native place, as the sparrows have amongst us, on account of the ravages they make in the rice fields. They have nothing attractive but their beauty, for their song is short and monotonous. They cost four or five pounds sterling a pair in Germany. THE WAXBILL. Loxia Astrild, LINNÆUS; Le Sénégali rayé, BUFFON; Der Gemeine Senegalist, BECHSTEIN.