The variable extragalactic object 3C 446.

The authors report recent photometric and spectroscopic data on 3C 446, including a very active phase in 1983. A discussion of all the available data confirms the existence of temporal scales in the optical variations of 1540 and 2130 days (640 and 890 days, respectively in the object's rest frame), with the first one corresponding to a greater number of maxima. During the brightening, the emission lines vanish and 3C 446 becomes a typical BL Lac object.