| 释义 |
grosbeak|ˈgrəʊsbiːk|
Also 8 gross-beak.
[ad. F. gros-bec, f. gros large + bec beak.]
A name given to a number of small birds having a large stout bill, chiefly of the families Fringillidæ and Ploceidæ. The common grosbeak is the hawfinch (Coccothraustes vulgaris). Other species are indicated by a defining word prefixed, as green grosbeak = greenfinch 1; pine g., Pinicola enucleator; cardinal g. (see cardinal n. 7); grenadier g. (see grenadier2 2 a); sociable g., a South African weaver-bird, Philhetærus socius; also (in U.S.) blue g. (Guiraca cærulea), evening g. (Hesperophona vespertina), rose-breasted g. (Hedymeles ludovicianus).
1678Ray Willughby's Ornith. 244 The common Grosbeak: Coccothraustes vulgaris. 1730Mortimer in Phil. Trans. XXXVI. 430 Cocothraustes cærulea, the blue Gross-Beak. Cocothraustes purpurea, the purple Gross-Beak. 1767G. White Selborne (1853) 364 Mr. B. shot a cock grosbeak which he had observed to haunt his garden. 1773Gentl. Mag. XLIII. 220 The red-throated Gross⁓beak. 1810A. Wilson in Poems & Lit. Prose (1876) I. 222 The blue grosbeak. 1850R. G. Cumming Hunter's Life S. Afr. (ed. 2) I. 233 Many of them [cameel-dorn trees] were inhabited by whole colonies of the social grosbeak. 1859Amer. Cycl. III. 283/1 The pensile grosbeak swings its basket nest from a pendant twig over a running stream..The sociable grosbeaks unite in the construction of a large basket-like cluster of nests..in a single structure. 1882Century Mag. June 210 Hear the grosbeak's whistle bold. 1884Roe in Harper's Mag. Mar. 619/1 One of our most beautiful..visitants is the pine grosbeak. |