GROSBEAK (Fr. Grosbec), a name very indefinitely applied to many birds belonging to the families Fringillidae and Ploceidae of modern ornithologists, and perhaps to some members of the Emberizidae and Tanagridae, but always to birds distinguished by the great size of their bill. Taken alone it is commonly a synonym of hawfinch (q.v.), but a prefix is usually added to indicate the species, as pine-grosbeak, cardinal-grosbeak and the like. By early writers the word was generally given as an equivalent of the Linnaean Loxia, but that genus has been found to include many forms not now placed in the same family.
The Pine-grosbeak (Pinicola enucleator) inhabits the conifer-zone of both the Old and the New Worlds, seeking, in Europe and probably elsewhere, a lower latitude as winter approaches—often journeying in large flocks; stragglers have occasionally reached the British Islands (Yarrell, Br. Birds, ed. 4, ii. 177-179). In structure and some of its habits much resembling a bullfinch, but much exceeding that bird in size, it has the plumage of a crossbill and appears to undergo the same changes as do the members of the restricted genus Loxia—the young being of a dull greenish-grey streaked with brownish-black, the adult hens tinged with golden-green, and the cocks glowing with crimson-red on nearly all the body-feathers, this last colour being replaced after moulting in confinement by bright yellow. Nests of this species were found in 1821 by Johana Wilhelm Zetterstedt near Juckasjärwi in Swedish Lapland, but little was known concerning its nidification until 1855, when John Wolley, after two years’ ineffectual search, succeeded in obtaining near the Finnish village Muonioniska, on the Swedish frontier, well-authenticated specimens with the eggs, both of which are like exaggerated bullfinches’. The food of this species seems to consist of the seeds and buds of many sorts of trees, though the staple may very possibly be those of some kind of pine.
Allied to the pine-grosbeak are a number of species of smaller size, but its equals in beauty of plumage.[1] They have been referred to several genera, such as Carpodacus, Propasser, Bycanetes, Uragus and others; but possibly Carpodacus is sufficient to contain all. Most of them are natives of the Old World, and chiefly of its eastern division, but several inhabit the western portion of North America, and one, C. githagineus (of which there seem to be at least two local races), is an especial native of the deserts, or their borders, of Arabia and North Africa, extending even to some of the Canary Islands—a singular modification in the habitat of a form which one would be apt to associate exclusively with forest trees, and especially conifers.
The cardinal grosbeak, or Virginian nightingale, Cardinalis virginianus, claims notice here, though doubts may be entertained as to the family to which it really belongs. It is no less remarkable for its bright carmine attire, and an elongated crest of the same colour, than for its fine song. Its ready adaptation to confinement has made it a popular cage-bird on both sides of the Atlantic. The hen is not so good a songster as the cock bird. Her plumage, with exception of the wings and tail, which are of a dull red, is light-olive above and brownish-yellow beneath. This species inhabits the eastern parts of the United States southward of 40° N. lat., and also occurs in the Bermudas. It is represented in the south-west of North America by other forms that by some writers are deemed species, and in the northern parts of South America by the C. phoeniceus, which would really seem entitled to distinction. Another kindred bird placed from its short and broad bill in a different genus, and known as Pyrrhuloxia sinuata or the Texan cardinal, is found on the southern borders of the United States and in Mexico; while among North American “grosbeaks” must also be named the birds belonging to the genera Guiraca and Hedymeles—the former especially exemplified by the beautiful blue G. caerulea, and the latter by the brilliant rose-breasted H. ludovicianus, which last extends its range into Canada.
The species of the Old World which, though commonly called “grosbeaks,” certainly belong to the family Ploceidae, are treated under Weaver-bird. (A. N.)
GROSE, FRANCIS (c. 1730–1791), English antiquary, was born at Greenford in Middlesex, about the year 1730. His father was a wealthy Swiss jeweller, settled at Richmond, Surrey. Grose early showed an interest in heraldry and antiquities, and his father procured him a position in the Heralds’ College. In 1763, being then Richmond Herald, he sold his tabard, and shortly afterwards became adjutant and paymaster of the Hampshire militia, where, as he himself humorously observed, the only account-books he kept were his right and left pockets, into the one of which he received, and from the other of which he paid. This carelessness exposed him to serious financial difficulties; and after a vain attempt to repair them by accepting a captaincy in the Surrey militia, the fortune left him by his father being squandered, he began to turn to account his excellent education and his powers as a draughtsman. In 1757 he had been elected fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. In 1773 he began to publish his Antiquities of England and Wales, a work which brought him money as well as fame. This, with its supplementary parts relating to the Channel Islands, was not completed till 1787. In 1789 he set out on an antiquarian tour through Scotland, and in the course of this journey met Burns, who composed in his honour the famous song beginning “Ken ye aught o’ Captain Grose,” and in that other poem, still more famous, “Hear, land o’ cakes, and brither Scots,” warned all Scotsmen of this “chield amang them taking notes.” In 1790 he began to publish the results of what Burns called “his peregrinations through Scotland;” but he had not finished the work when he bethought himself of going over to Ireland and doing for that country what he had already done for Great Britain. About a month after his arrival, while in Dublin, he died in an apoplectic fit at the dinner-table of a friend, on the 12th of June 1791.
Grose was a sort of antiquarian Falstaff—at least he possessed in a striking degree the knight’s physical peculiarities; but he was a man of true honour and charity, a valuable friend, “overlooking little faults and seeking out greater virtues,” and an inimitable boon companion. His humour, his varied knowledge and his good nature were all eminently calculated to make him a favourite in society. As Burns says of him—
For meikle glee and fun has he,
Then set him down, and twa or three
Gude fellows wi’ him;
And port, O port! shine thou a wee,
And then ye’ll see him!”
Grose’s works include The Antiquities of England and Wales (6 vols., 1773–1787); Advice to the Officers of the British Army (1782), a satire in the manner of Swift’s Directions to Servants; A Guide to Health, Beauty, Riches and Honour (1783), a collection of advertisements of the period, with characteristic satiric preface; A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1785); A Treatise on Ancient Armour and Weapons (1785–1789); Darrell’s History of Dover (1786); Military Antiquities (2 vols., 1786–1788); A Provincial Glossary (1787); Rules for Drawing Caricatures (1788); The Antiquities of Scotland (2 vols., 1789–1791); Antiquities of Ireland (2 vols., 1791), edited and partly written by Ledwich. The Grumbler, sixteen humerous essays, appeared in 1791 after his death; and in 1793 The Olio, a collection of essays, jests and small pieces of poetry, highly characteristic of Grose, though certainly not all by him, was put together from his papers by his publisher, who was also his executor.
A capital full-length portrait of Grose by N. Dance is in the first volume of the Antiquities of England and Wales, and another is among Kay’s Portraits. A versified sketch of him appeared in the Gentleman’s Magazine, lxi. 660. See Gentleman’s Magazine, lxi. 498, 582; Noble’s Hist. of the College of Arms, p. 434; Notes and Queries, 1st ser., ix. 350; 3rd ser., i. 64, x. 280-281; 5th ser., xii. 148; 6th ser., ii. 47, 257, 291; Hone, Every-day Book, i. 655.
GROSS, properly thick, bulky, the meaning of the Late Lat. grossus. The Latin word has usually been taken as cognate with crassus, thick, but this is now doubted. It also appears not to be connected with the Ger. gross, a Teutonic word represented in English by “great.” Apart from its direct meaning,
- ↑ Many of them are described and illustrated in the Monographie des loxiens of Prince C. L. Bonaparte and Professor Schlegel (1850), though it excludes many birds which an English writer would call “grosbeaks.”
