FAMILY FRINGILLIDÆ.—THE FINCHES

FAMILY FRINGILLIDÆ.—THE FINCHES

CHAR. Primaries nine. Bill very short, abruptly conical, and robust. Commissure strongly angulated at base of bill. Tarsi scutellate anteriorly, but the sides with two undivided plates meeting behind along the median line, as a sharp posterior ridge. Eyes hazel or brown, except in Pipilo, where they are reddish or yellowish. Nest and eggs very variable as to character and situation.

I still labor under the inability expressed in Birds of North America (p. 406), in 1858, to satisfactorily define and limit the subfamilies and genera of the Fringillidæ of North America, and can only hope that by the aid of the figures of the present work no material difficulty will be experienced in determining the species. The distinctions from the allied families are also difficult to draw with precision. This is especially the case with the Tanagridæ, where we have much the same external anatomy, including the bill, nearly all the varying peculiarities of this member in the one being repeated in the other.—S. F. B.

All the United States species may be provisionally divided into four subfamilies (the European House-Sparrow forming a fifth), briefly characterizable as follows:—

Coccothraustinæ. Bill variable, from enormously large to quite small; the base of the upper mandible almost always provided with a close-pressed fringe of bristly feathers (more or less conspicuous) concealing the nostrils. Wings very long and pointed, usually one half to one third longer than the forked or emarginate tail. Tarsi short.

Pyrgitinæ. Bill robust, swollen, arched above without distinct ridge. Lower mandible at base narrower than upper. Nostrils covered; side of maxilla with stiff appressed bristles. Tarsi short, not longer than middle toe. Tail shorter than the somewhat pointed wings. Back streaked; under parts not streaked.

Spizellinæ. Embracing all the plain-colored sparrow-like species marked with longitudinal stripes. Bill conical, always rather small; both mandibles about equal. Tarsi lengthened. Wings and tail variable. Lateral claws never reaching beyond the base of the middle claw.

Passerellinæ. Sparrow-like species, with triangular spots beneath. Legs, toes, and claws very stout; the lateral claws reaching nearly to the end of the middle ones.

Spizinæ. Brightly colored species, usually without streaks. Bill usually very large and much curved; lower mandible wider than the upper. Wings moderately long. Tail variable.

SUBFAMILY COCCOTHRAUSTINÆ.—THE TRUE FINCHES.

CHAR. Wings very long and much pointed; generally one third longer than the more or less forked tail; first quill usually nearly as long as or longer than the second. Tertiaries but little longer, or equal to the secondaries, and always much exceeded by the primaries. Bill very variable in shape and size, the upper mandible, however, as broad as the lower; nostrils rather more lateral than usual; and always more or less concealed by a series of small bristly feathers applied along the base of the upper mandible; no bristles at the base of the bill. Feet short and rather weak. Hind claw usually considerably longer than the middle anterior one; sometimes nearly the same size.

In the preceding diagnosis I have combined a number of forms, all agreeing in the length and acuteness of the wing, the bristly feathers along the base of the bill, the absence of conspicuous bristles on the sides of the mouth, and the shortness of the feet. They are all strongly marked and brightly colored birds, and usually belong to the more northern regions.

The bill is very variable, even in the same genus, and its shape is to a considerable extent of specific rather than of generic importance. The fringe of short bristles along the base of the bill, concealing the nostrils, is not appreciable in Plectrophanes (except in P. nivalis), but the other characteristics given above are all present.

Genera.

A. Bill enormously large and stout; the lateral outline as long as that of the skull. Culmen gently curved.

Colors green, yellow, and black.

Hesperiphona. First quill equal to the second. Wings one half longer than the tail. Lateral claws equal, reaching to the base of the middle claw. Claws much curved, obtuse; hinder one but little longer than the middle.

B. Bill smaller, with the culmen more or less curved; the lateral outline not so long as the skull. Wings about one third longer than the tail, or a little more; first quill shorter than the second. Claws considerably curved and thickened; hinder most so, and almost inappreciably longer or even shorter than the middle anterior one. Tarsus shorter than the middle toes. Lateral toes unequal.

a. Colors red, gray, and black, never streaked.

Pyrrhula. Bill excessively swollen; as broad and as high as long, not half length of head; upper outline much curved. Tail-coverts covering two thirds the tail, which is nearly even, middle and hinder claws about equal.

b. Colors red and gray, or streaked brown and white.

Pinicola. Bill moderately swollen; longer than high or broad, upper outlines much curved; the tip hooked. Tail-coverts reaching over basal half of tail, which is nearly even. Middle claw longer than hind; outer lateral claw extending beyond base of middle (reaching to it in Pyrrhula and Carpodacus). ♀ and juv. not streaked.

Carpodacus. Bill variable, always more or less curved and swollen; longer than high or broad; the tip not hooked. Tail-coverts reaching over two thirds the tail, which is decidedly forked. Middle and hind claw about equal. ♀ and juv. streaked.

c. Colors black and yellow.

Chrysomitris. Bill nearly straight. Hind claw stouter and more curved, but scarcely longer than the middle anterior one. Outer lateral toe reaching a little beyond the base of the middle claw; shorter than the hind toe. Wings longer and more pointed. Tail quite deeply forked.

C. Hind claw considerably longer than the middle anterior one, with about the same curvature; claws attenuated towards the point, and acute. Lateral toes about equal. Wings usually almost one half longer than the tail, which is deeply forked. Tarsus shorter than middle toe.

a. Points of mandibles overlapping.

Curvirostra. Tarsus shorter than middle toe. Bill much compressed, elongate falcate, with the points crossing like the blades of scissors. Claws very large; lateral extending beyond the base of the middle. Colors red or gray. Streaked in juv.

b. Points of mandibles not overlapping.

Ægiothus. Tarsus equal to the middle toe. Bill very acutely conical; outlines and commissure perfectly straight. Lateral toes reaching beyond the base of the middle one. No ridge on the side of the lower mandible. Streaked; a crimson pileum (except in one species).

Leucosticte. Culmen slightly decurved; commissure a little concave. Bill obtusely conical; not sharp-pointed. A conspicuous ridge on the side of the lower mandible. Claws large; the lateral not reaching beyond the base of the middle one. Colors red and brown.

D. Hind claw much the largest; decidedly less curved than the middle anterior one. Tarsus longer than the middle toe. Lateral toes equal; reaching about to the base of the middle claw. Hind toe as long or longer than the middle one. Bill very variable; always more or less curved and blunted. Palate somewhat tuberculate; margins of lower jaw much inflexed. Tail slightly emarginate or even. Wings one half longer than the tail. First quill as long as the second.

Plectrophanes. Colors black and white. With or without rufous nape or elbows. Much white on tail.

GENUS HESPERIPHONA, BONAP.

Hesperiphona, BONAP. Comptes Rendus, XXXI, Sept. 1850, 424. (Type, Fringilla vespertina.)

[Line drawing: 16770, Hesperiphona vespertina. 18597, Coccothraustes vulgaris.]

GEN. CHAR. Bill largest and stoutest of all the United States fringilline birds. Upper mandible much vaulted; culmen nearly straight, but arched towards the tip; commissure concave. Lower jaw very large, but not broader than the upper, nor extending back, as in Guiraca; considerably lower than the upper jaw. Gonys unusually long. Feet short; tarsus less than the middle toe; lateral toes nearly equal, and reaching to the base of the middle claw. Claws much curved, stout, and compressed. Wings very long and pointed, reaching beyond the middle of the tail. Primaries much longer than the nearly equal secondaries and tertials; outer two quills longest; the others rapidly graduated. Tail slightly forked; scarcely more than two thirds the length of the wings, its coverts covering nearly three fourths of its extent. Nest and eggs unknown.

This genus is allied to the European Coccothraustes, but differs in wanting the curious expansion of the inner secondaries, as shown in Fig. 18,597. Species are said to occur in Asia, but we have only two in America,—one peculiar to Mexico (H. abeillii), the other H. vespertina.

The American species may be thus distinguished:—

Species and Varieties.

COMMON CHARACTERS. Wings and tail black, the tertials with more or less whitish; body concolored, with more or less of a yellowish tinge. ♂. Body yellowish, more olivaceous above; no white at base of primaries. ♀. Body grayish, merely tinged with yellow; a white spot at base of primaries. Nest and eggs unknown.

1. H. vespertina. ♂. Head olivaceous-sepia, with a yellow frontal crescent and a black occipital patch. ♀. Crown plumbeous-brown; a dusky “bridle” down side of the throat; upper tail-coverts tipped with a white spot.

Yellow frontal crescent broad, as wide as the black behind it; inner webs of tertials partially black; secondaries and inner webs of tail-feathers tipped with white. Hab. Northern mountain regions of United States and interior of British America … var. vespertina.

Yellow frontal crescent narrow, less than half as wide as the black behind it; inner webs of the tertials without any black; secondaries and inner webs of tail-feathers without white tips. Hab. Southern Rocky Mountains of United States, and mountains of Mexico … var. montana.

2. H. abeillii.[108] ♂. Head entirely black, sharply defined. ♀. Crown (only) black; no dusky “bridle” on side of throat; upper tail-coverts without white tips. Hab. Mountains of Guatemala and Southern Mexico.

Hesperiphona vespertina, BONAP.

EVENING GROSBEAK.

Fringilla vespertina, COOPER, Annals New York Lyceum, N. H. I, ii, 1825, 220 (Sault St. Marie).—AUD. Orn. Biog. IV, 1838, 515; V, 235, pl. ccclxxiii, ccccxxiv. Fringilla (Coccothraustes) vespertina, BON. Syn. 1828, 113.—IB. Am. Orn. II, pl. xv. Coccothraustes vespertina, SW. F. Bor. Am. II, 1831, 269.—AUD. Birds Am. III, 1841, 217, pl. ccvii. Hesperiphona vespertina, BON. Comptes Rendus, XXXI, Sept. 1850, 424.—BAIRD, Birds N. Am. 1858, 409.—COOPER & SUCKLEY, 195.—COOPER, Orn. Cal. 1, 174. Coccothraustes bonapartii, LESSON, Illust. de Zoöl. 1834, pl. xxxiv. ♀ (Melville Island). Loxia bonapartii, LESS. Bull. Sc. tab. xxv. Hesperiphona vespertina, var. vespertina, RIDGWAY (new variety from Mexico and the southern Rocky Mountains).

SP. CHAR. Bill yellowish-green, dusky at the base. Anterior half of the body dusky yellowish-olive, shading into yellow to the rump above, and the under tail-coverts below. Outer scapulars, a broad frontal band continued on each side over the eye, axillaries, and middle of under wing-coverts yellow. Feathers along the extreme base of the bill, the crown, tibiæ, wings, upper tail-coverts, and tail black; inner greater wing-coverts and tertiaries white. Length, 7.30; wing, 4.30; tail, 2.75.

The female differs in having the head of a dull olivaceous-brown, which color also glosses the back. The yellow of the rump and other parts is replaced by a yellowish-ash. The upper tail-coverts are spotted with white. The white of the wing is much restricted. There is an obscure blackish line on each side of the chin.

HAB. (Var. vespertina.) Pacific coast to Rocky Mountains; Northern America east to Lake Superior. (Var. montana.) Southern Rocky Mountains of United States into Mexico; Orizaba! (SCLATER, 1860, 251); Vera Cruz (alpine regions, breeding) SUMICHRAST, Pr. Bost. Soc. I, 550; Guatemala, SALVIN.

The variety with broad frontal band and increased amount of white appears to characterize Northern specimens, while that with narrow frontlet and the greatest amount of black is found in Guatemala, Mexico, and the southern Rocky Mountains, and may be called montana.

In size it is also a little smaller. Specimens from Mirador (where breeding) and those from New Mexico are nearly identical in size, proportions, and colors.

HABITS. This remarkable Grosbeak was first described by Mr. William Cooper, from specimens obtained by Mr. Schoolcraft in April, 1823, near the Sault Sainte Marie, in Michigan. Sir John Richardson soon after found it to be a common inhabitant of the maple groves on the plains of the Saskatchewan, where it is called by the Indians the “Sugar-Bird.” He states that it frequents the borders of Lake Superior also, and the eastern declivity of the Rocky Mountains, in latitude 56°.

Captain Blakiston did not find this Grosbeak on the Saskatchewan during the summer, but only noticed it there during the winter. He saw none after the 22d of April, and not again until the middle of November. They were seen in company with the Pine Grosbeak, feeding on the keys of the ash-leaved maple. He adds that it has a sharp clear note in winter, and is an active bird.

Dr. Cooper, in his Notes on the Zoölogy of Washington Territory, states that this species is a common resident in its forests, but adds that as it frequents the summits of the tallest trees, its habits have been but little observed. In January, 1854, during a snow-storm, a flock descended to some low bushes at Vancouver, and began to eat the seeds. Since then he had only seen them flying high among the tops of the poplars, upon the seeds of which they feed. They were uttering their loud, shrill call-notes as they flew.

The same writer, in his Report on the birds of California, makes mention of the occurrence of this Grosbeak at Michigan Bluffs, in Placer County, in about latitude 39°. Specimens were obtained by Mr. F. Gruber, and were probably the variety designated as montana. The same form doubtless occurs along the summits of the Sierra Nevada, and they have been traced among the Rocky Mountains to Fort Thorn in New Mexico.

These birds do not come down near the sea-coast even at the mouth of the Columbia, and in California have not been met with in the Coast Range. They are said to feed chiefly on the seeds of the pine, spruce, and cottonwood trees, occasionally seeking other seeds near the ground. They are silent when feeding, but utter a loud call-note as they fly from place to place. In spring, Dr. Cooper states, they have a short but melodious song, resembling that of the Robin or Black-headed Grosbeak. He afterwards met with a flock in the winter near Santa Cruz, where they remained until the end of April. Their favorite resort was a small grove of alders and willows, close to the town, where their loud call-notes could be heard at all times of the day, though he never heard them sing. In the early spring their favorite food was the young leaves of various wild plants that grew under the trees. They also fed on the buds of the Negundo, and frequented the large pear-trees in the old mission garden. They were very tame, and allowed an approach to within a few yards, when feeding. Mr. Townsend, in 1836, found this Grosbeak abundant about the Columbia River. Late in May they were quite numerous in the pine woods. They were very unsuspicious and tame. Under the impression that these birds were only musical towards night, they have been styled the Evening Grosbeak. But this, according to Mr. Townsend, is a misnomer. He also contraverts several other statements made in reference to their habits. He found them remarkably noisy from morning until night, when they quietly retire like other birds, and are not heard from until the next day-dawn. They go in large flocks, and are rarely met with singly. As they feed upon the seeds of the pine and other trees, they proceed by a succession of hops to the extremities of the branches. They also feed largely on the larvæ of the large black ant, for which object they frequent the tops of the low oaks on the edges of the forests. Their ordinary voice is said to be a single screaming note, uttered while feeding. At times, about midday, the male attempts a song, which Mr. Townsend describes as a miserable failure. It is a single note, a warbling call like the first note of the Robin, but not so sweet, and suddenly checked, as if the performer were out of breath.

Mr. Sumichrast met with the variety of this species designated as montana, May, 1857, in the pine woods of Monte Alto, about twelve leagues from Mexico; and although he has never found it in the alpine region of Vera Cruz, he thinks it probable it will be found to be a resident of that district.

Lake Superior has been stated to be its most eastern point of occurrence, but, though this may be true as a general rule, several instances of the accidental appearance of this nomadic species much farther to the east are known. On February 14, 1871, Mr. Kumlien, while out in the woods with his son, saw a small flock of these birds in Dane County, Wisconsin. There were six of them, but, having no gun, he did not procure any. Later in the season he again met with and secured specimens. In the following March, Dr. Hoy of Racine also obtained several near that city. He also informs me that during the winter of 1870-71 there were large flocks of these birds near Freeport, Ill. One person procured twenty-four specimens. One season he noticed them as late as May. They frequent the maple woods, and feed on the seeds fallen on the ground. They also eat the buds of the wild cherry. Their visits are made at irregular intervals. In some years not a single individual can be seen, while in others they make their appearance in December and continue through the whole winter.

Specimens have also been obtained near Cleveland, Ohio, and at Hamilton, Canada; and Mr. Thomas McIlwraith states that Mr. T. J. Cottle of Woodstock, Ontario, shot several of these birds in his orchard in the month of May. They were quite numerous, and remained about the place several days.

GENUS PINICOLA, VIEILL.

Pinicola, VIEILLOT, Ois. Am. Sept. I, 1807, 4, pl. i, f. 13. “ Strobilophaga, VIEILLOT, Analyse, 1816.” “ Corythus, CUVIER, R. An. 1817.”

CHAR. Bill short, nearly as high as long; upper outline much curved from the base; the margins of the mandibles rounded; the commissure gently concave, and abruptly deflexed at the tip; base of the upper mandible much concealed by the bristly feathers covering the basal third. Tarsus rather shorter than the middle toe; lateral toes short, but their long claws reach the base of the middle one, which is longer than the hind claw. Wings moderate; the first quill rather shorter than the second, third, and fourth. Tail rather shorter than the wings; nearly even.

Of this genus one species is found in northern America, and is now considered as identical with that belonging to the northern regions of the Old World.

Pinicola enucleator, CABANIS.

THE PINE GROSBEAK.

Coccothraustes canadensis, BRISSON, Orn. III, 1760, 250, pl. xii, f. 3. “Corythus canadensis, BREHM, Vögel Deutschlands” (1831?). Pinicola canadensis, CABANIS, Mus. Hein. 1851, 167.—BAIRD, Birds N. Am. 1858, 410.—DALL & BANNISTER, Tr. Chic. Ac. Sc. I, 1869, 281 (Alaska).—COOPER, Orn. Cal. 1, 151.—SAMUELS, Birds N. Eng. 283. Pinicola americana (CAB. MSS.), BP. Consp. 1850, 528. Loxia enucleator, LINN. Syst. Nat. I, 299.—FORST. Phil. Trans. LXII, 1772, 383.—WILS. Am. Orn. I, 1808, 80, pl. v. Pyrrhula enucleator, AUD. Orn. Biog. IV, 1838, 414, pl. ccclviii. Corythus enucleator, BONAP. List. 1838.—AUD. Syn. 127.—IB. Birds Am. III, 1841, 179, pl. cxcix.—BON. & SCHLEGEL, Mon. des Loxiens, 1850, 9, pl. ix, xi, xii.—DEGLAND & GERBE, Orn. Europ. I, 258. Pinicola enucleator, CABANIS, Mus. Hein. I, 1851, 167.

[Line drawing: Pinicola enucleator. 12846]

SP. CHAR. Bill and legs black. Male. General color light carmine-red or rose, not continuous above, however, except on the head; the feathers showing brownish centres on the back, where, too, the red is darker. Loral region, base of lower jaw all round, sides (under the wing), abdomen, and posterior part of the body, with under tail-coverts, ashy, whitest behind. Wing with two white bands across the tips of the greater and middle coverts; the outer edges of the quills also white, broadest on the tertiaries, on secondaries tinged with red. Female ashy, brownish above, tinged with greenish-yellow beneath; top of head, rump, and upper tail-coverts brownish gamboge-yellow. Wings much as in the male. Length about 8.50; wing, 4.50; tail, 4.00. Young like female, but more ashy.

HAB. Arctic America, south to United States in severe winters.

A careful comparison of American with European specimens of the Pine Grosbeak does not present any tangible point of distinction, and it appears inexpedient to preserve the name of canadensis for the bird of the New World. There is considerable difference in the size, the proportions of the bill, and the color of different specimens, but none of appreciable geographical value.

A considerable number of specimens from Kodiak (perhaps to be found in other localities on the northwest coast) compared with eastern have conspicuously larger bills, almost equal to cardinalis in this respect. In No. 54,465 the length from forehead is .80; from nostril, .50; from gape, .66; gonys, .40; greatest depth, .51. In a Brooklyn skin (12,846) the same measurements are from forehead, .60; from nostril, .44; from gape, .60; gonys, .34; greatest depth, .40. A Saskatchewan skin is intermediate. A European specimen has the bill as long as that from Kodiak, but less swollen. A Himalayan species (C. subhimachalus) is much smaller, and differently colored.

These Kodiak specimens approach the European bird more nearly in form of the bill, in which there is a tendency to a more abruptly hooked upper mandible than in the birds from the eastern portions of British America. As a general thing, the red tint is brighter in American than in European birds.

HABITS. The Pine Grosbeak is, to a large extent, a resident of the portions of North America north of the United States. In the northern parts of New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, as well as in western America, it is found throughout the year in the dark evergreen forests. In the winter it is an irregular visitant as far south as Philadelphia, being in some seasons very abundant, and again for several winters quite rare.

Mr. Boardman mentions it as abundant, in the winter, about Calais, and Mr. Verrill gives it as quite common in the vicinity of Norway. It is found every winter more or less frequently in Eastern Massachusetts, though Mr. Allen regards it as rare in the vicinity of Springfield. It is not cited by Dr. Cooper as a bird of Washington Territory, but he mentions it as not uncommon near the summits of the Sierra Nevada, latitude 39°, in September. It probably breeds there, as he found two birds in that region in the young plumage. They were feeding on spruce seeds when he first saw them, and lingered even after their companions had been shot, and allowed him to approach within a few feet of them.

Mr. R. Brown (Ibis, 1868) states that during the winter of 1866, while snow was lying on the ground, two pairs of this species were shot at Fort Rupert, Vancouver Island.

Wilson met with occasional specimens of these birds in the vicinity of Philadelphia, generally in immature plumage, and kept one several months, to note any change in its plumage. In the summer it lost all its red colors and became of a greenish-yellow. In May and June, its song, though not so loud as that of some birds, was extremely clear, mellow, and sweet. This song it warbled out for the whole morning, and also imitated the notes of a Cardinal, that hung near it. It became exceedingly tame and familiar, and when in want of food or water, uttered a continual melancholy and anxious note.

In the winter of 1835, and for several following seasons, these birds were exceedingly abundant in the vicinity of Boston. They appeared early in December, and remained until quite late in March, feeding chiefly on the berries of the red cedar. They were so unsuspecting and familiar that it was often possible to capture them alive in butterfly-nets, and to knock them down with poles. Large numbers were destroyed and brought to market, and many were taken alive and caged. They were tame, but unhappy in confinement, uttering mournful cries as the warm weather approached. In the winter of 1869-70 they again made their appearance in extraordinary numbers, in a few localities on the sea-coast of Massachusetts, where they did considerable damage to the fruit-buds of the apple and pear.

Sir John Richardson states that this bird was not observed by his expedition higher than the 60th parallel. It lives, for the most part, a very retired life, in the deepest recesses of the pine forests, where it passes the entire year, having been found by Mr. Drage, near York Fort, on the 25th of January, 1747. Richardson adds that it builds its nest on the lower branches of trees, and feeds chiefly on the seeds of the white spruce.

Dr. Coues speaks of it as not at all rare along the coast of Labrador, where he obtained several specimens. It was confined entirely to the thick woods and patches of scrubby juniper. A female remained unconcernedly on a twig after he had shot her mate, uttering continually a low soft shep, like that of the Fox-colored Sparrow. Another note was a prolonged whirring chirrup, uttered in a rather low tone, apparently a note of recognition.

A lady resident in Newfoundland informed Mr. Audubon that she had kept several of these Grosbeaks in confinement, that they soon became very familiar, would sing during the night, feeding, during the summer, on all kinds of fruit and berries, and in the winter on different seeds. Mr. Audubon also often observed that, when firing at one of their number, the others, instead of flying away, would move towards him, often to within a few feet, and remain on the lower branches of the trees, gazing at him in curiosity, entirely unmingled with any sense of their own danger. Mr. Audubon quotes from Mr. McCulloch, of Pictou, an interesting account of the habits of one of these birds, kept in confinement. The winter had been very severe, the storms violent, and, in consequence of the depth of snow, many birds had perished from hunger and cold. The Grosbeaks, driven from the woods, sought food around the barns and outhouses, and crowded the streets of Pictou. One of these, taken in a starving condition, soon became so tame as to feed from his hand, lived at large in his chamber, and would awaken him early in the morning to receive his allowance of seed. As spring approached, he began to whistle in the morning, and his notes were exceedingly rich and full. As the time came when his mates were moving north, his familiarity entirely disappeared, and he sought constantly, by day and by night, to escape by dashing against the window-panes, and during the day filled the house with his piteous wailing cries, refusing his food, so that in pity he was let out. But no sooner was he thus released than he seemed indifferent to the privilege, and kept about the door so persistently that he had at last to be driven away, lest some accident should befall him.

The Pine Grosbeaks were found by Bischoff at Sitka and at Kodiak, and are said by Mr. Dall to be extremely common near Nulato, and wherever there are trees throughout the Yukon Territory. They frequent groves of willow and poplar, near open places, and especially the water-side in winter, and in summer seek more retired places for breeding. Their crops, when opened, were always found to contain the hearts of the buds of poplars, with the external coverings carefully rejected, and were never found to include anything else. Mr. Dall noticed no song, only a twitter and a long chirp. He found them excellent as an article of food. European eggs of this bird, taken by Mr. Wolley in Finland in 1858, are of an oblong-oval shape, and have a light slate-colored ground with a marked tinge of greenish, broadly marked and plashed with faint, subdued cloudy patches of brownish-purple, and sparingly spotted, chiefly at the larger end, with blackish-brown and dark purple. They measure 1.02 inches in length by .70 in breadth.

No positively identified eggs of the American Pine Grosbeak are as yet known in collections, but Mr. Boardman has found a nest, near Calais, about which there can be little doubt, although the parent was not seen. This was placed in an alder-bush in a wet meadow, and was about four feet from the ground. It was composed entirely of coarse green mosses. The eggs were two, and were not distinguishable from those of the European enucleator.

GENUS PYRRHULA, PALLAS.

Pyrrhula, “BRISSON, Orn. 1760.” PALLAS.

GEN. CHAR. Bill very short and thick, higher than long, swollen. Lower jaw broader at base than upper jaw, and broader than length of gonys. Nostrils and base of mandible concealed by a thick tuft of rather soft feathers. Tail nearly even, shorter than the pointed wings; upper coverts reaching over nearly two thirds the tail. Middle and hind claws about equal.

This genus is closely related to Pinicola, but has a more swollen and much shorter bill, the lower jaw disproportionately larger, and wider than long along gonys, instead of being about equal. The nasal tuft is thicker and more feathery and less bristly than in Pinicola. The upper tail-coverts are much longer, the tail less emarginate. Other differences exist in the grooves and ridges of the palate, which need not be here referred to. The middle claw is about equal to hind claw; not longer, as in Pinicola.

[Line drawing: Pyrrhula cassini. 49955]

The genus Pyrrhula is an Old World one; extending across from the Atlantic to the Pacific, six or eight species or varieties being recognized by naturalists. All have the back ash-colored; the wings and tail, with top of head, lustrous black; the under parts ash, generally with vermilion on the cheeks and chin, sometimes extending over the whole under surface; the rump and crissum white: the females similar, but lacking the vermilion. Its introduction into the North American fauna rests on the collecting by the naturalists of the Russian Telegraph Expedition in Alaska of a specimen which—if a full-plumaged male, as stated—differs from all of its congeners in the entire absence of any vermilion tint.

Pyrrhula cassini, BAIRD.

CASSIN’S BULLFINCH.

P. coccinea, var. cassini, BAIRD, Trans. Chicago, Ac. Sc. I, 1869, ii, p. 316.—DALL & BANNISTER, Tr. Chic. Ac. I, 1869, 281 (Alaska). P. cassini, TRISTRAM, Ibis, 1871, 231.—FINSCH, Ornith. N. W. Amerikas, 1872, 54.

SP. CHAR. Description of specimen No. 49,955: Upper parts clear ash-gray, as are the alula, and the lesser and middle secondary and the primary wing-coverts. Under parts and the sides of head cinnamon-gray; the inside of wings and axillars, anal region, tibia, crissum, and rump white; wings and tail, including upper tail-coverts, the entire top of head (to level of eyes), the base of bill all round, and the chin, lustrous violet-black. Greater wing-coverts black, with a broad band of ashy-white across the ends; outer primaries, externally, with a narrow border of grayish-white near the ends; inner edges suffused with the same. Outer tail-feathers with an elongated patch of white in the terminal half, along the shaft, but not reaching the tip. Bill black; feet dusky.

Dimensions (prepared specimen): Total length, 6.50; wing, 3.55; tail, 3.25. Exposed portion of first primary, 2.65. Bill: Length from forehead, .44; from nostril, .34. Legs: Tarsus, .75; claw alone, .26; hind toe and claw, .45; claw alone, .25.

No. 49,955, adult male. Nulato, Yukon River, Alaska. January 10, 1867. W. H. DALL (No. 553).

The specimen referred to above is the first record of the occurrence in America of a genus heretofore considered as belonging exclusively to the Old World.

This bird was described in 1869 as a possible variety of P. coccinea of Europe. On submitting the typical specimens to Mr. H. B. Tristram of England, it was decided to be a well-marked and distinct species, as explained in the following extract from a letter received from him.

“The coloration of the back is the same as in males of P. coccinea and P. rubicilla, and differs from the coloration of the ♀ in all three species. In all the ♀ has the back brown instead of slate-colored. Your bird, however, differs from P. coccinea in having the under parts of the same color as the ♂ of P. griseiventris with a slightly redder hue on the flanks, while P. coccinea is a brilliant blazing red. In this your bird is like P. murina of the Azores, but that has no white on the rump.

“Nor can it be ♂ juv. of P. coccinea, because it has the black head, and the young assumes the black head and red breast simultaneously, or rather the red begins first. It differs from P. nipalensis in having a black head and broad white rump, as well as in size.”

Dr. O. Finsch, of Bremen, agrees with Mr. Tristram in considering it as specifically distinct, and says that the long white shaft-streak on the outermost tail-feather is to be considered as one of the peculiar characters, and that in general it resembles the female of P. griseiventris, LAFR., but differs in having the back beautiful ash-gray.

HABITS. This new species of Bullfinch, having a close resemblance to the P. coccinea of Europe, was obtained by Mr. Dall, near Nulato, Alaska, January 10, 1867. An Indian brought it in alive, but badly wounded, having shot it from a small tree near the fort. He had never seen anything like it before, nor had any of the Russians. Captain Everett Smith had, however, met with several flocks of the same species near Ulukuk. This specimen was a male, with black eyes, feet, and bill, and was the only bird of the kind met with by Mr. Dall.

In size it is about equal to P. coccinea, which is now quite generally considered to be simply a large race of the common Bullfinch (P. vulgaris), and the habits of the American bird are doubtless similar to those of its congeners. The European races inhabit the mountainous regions of Northern and Central Europe, appearing in large flocks in December and January in the more southern regions. In their return in spring to their summer quarters, they move in smaller numbers. They nest in the mountain forests, on trees or bushes. Their nest is usually but a few feet from the ground, is beautifully wrought in a cup shape, made externally of small twigs, blades of grass, and rootlets, lined with coarse hair. They lay five eggs, the ground-color of which shades from a light blue to a bluish or a greenish white, with brown and violet-colored spots, that usually form a ring around the larger end. Their food is grain and small seeds, and, in spring, the buds of certain trees.

The Bullfinch is a favorite cage-bird, soon reconciled to confinement, and capable of being taught to whistle whole airs of opera music with wonderful exactness and beauty.

GENUS CARPODACUS, KAUP.

Carpodacus, KAUP, “Entw. Europ. Thierw. 1829.” (Type, Loxia erythrina, PALL.) Erythrospiza, BONAPARTE, Saggio di una dist. met. 1831. Hæmorrhous, SWAINSON, Class. Birds, II, 1837, 295. (Type, Fringilla purpurea, GMELIN.)

[Line drawing: Carpodacus frontalis. 796 ♂]

CHAR. Bill short, stout, vaulted; the culmen decurved towards the end; the commissure nearly straight to the slightly decurved end. A slight development of bristly feathers along the sides of the bill, concealing the nostrils. Tarsus shorter than the middle toe; lateral claws reaching to the base of the middle one. Claw of hind toe much curved, smaller than the middle one, and rather less than the digital portion. Wings long and pointed, reaching to the middle of the tail, which is considerably shorter than the wing, and moderately forked. Colors red, or red and brown. Female with the red replaced by brown.

The genus Carpodacus, including the American Purple Finches, is composed of species the males of which are more or less red in full plumage, while the females are brown-streaked. They are spread over North America, and species also occur in considerable numbers in Northern Europe and Asia.

Species and Varieties.

A. Culmen only slightly curved. Tail and wing feathers edged with reddish in the male.

a. ♂. Crown much brighter purple than the rump or throat. ♀. Without lighter superoral and maxillary stripes, the whole head being pretty uniformly streaked.

1. C. cassini. ♂. Crown bright crimson; rest of head, breast, rump, etc., much lighter purple-pink; lower tail-coverts with a shaft line of dusky. Hab. Mountain regions of the Middle Province, south, through the table-lands and alpine regions of Mexico, to Mirador.

b. ♂. Crown scarcely brighter purple than the rump or throat. ♀. With conspicuous superoral and maxillary stripes.

2. C. purpureus. Crown purple; rest of head, breast, rump, etc., nearly similar in tint; lower tail-coverts without dusky shaft-lines.

Purple tints of a rosy carmine cast; first quill longer than the fourth. Hab. Eastern Province of North America … var. purpureus.

Purple tints of a darker purplish-rose cast; first quill shorter than the fourth. Hab. Pacific Province of North America … var. californicus.

B. Culmen much curved. Tail and wing feathers edged with grayish in the male.

3. C. frontalis. ♂. A frontal and superciliary band of crimson; a patch of same on the rump, and another on the throat and jugulum; abdomen and crissum streaked with dusky.

♂. Red restricted to the portions mentioned above.

Red of an intense carmine tint, sharply defined, and strictly restricted within the limits indicated. Hab. Plateau of Mexico … var. hæmorrhous.[109]

Red of a lighter carmine, and with a greater or less tendency to escape its boundaries. Hab. Middle Province of the United States … var. frontalis.

♂. Red not restricted, but spread over the crown, tingeing the back and other portions, excepting wings and tail.

Red tint varying from scarlet to wine-red. Hab. Pacific Province of United States, including the peninsula of Lower California … var. rhodocolpus.

Carpodacus cassini, BAIRD.

CASSIN’S PURPLE FINCH.

Carpodacus cassini, BAIRD, Pr. A. N. S. Philad. VII, June, 1854, 119; Birds, N. Am. 1858, 414, pl. xxvii, f. 1.—LORD, Pr. R. A. Inst. iv, 1864, 119 (Br. Col. between Rocky Mts. and Cascades).—KENNERLY, P. R. R. X, pl. xxvii, f. 1.—COOPER, Orn. Cal. 1, 155.

SP. CHAR. Larger than C. purpureus. Bill, .55 of an inch above. Second and third quills longest; first longer than fourth. Male. Above pale grayish-brown, the feathers streaked with darker brown, and with only an occasional gloss of reddish, except on the crown, which is uniform deep crimson, and on the rump. Sides of the head and neck, throat, and upper part of breast with rump, pale rose-color; rest of under parts white, very faintly and sparsely streaked with brown. Female without any red, and streaked on the head and under parts with brown. Length, 6.50; wing, 3.60; tail, 2.60.

HAB. Mountainous regions of Middle Province of United States, from Rocky Mountains to Sierra Nevada. British Columbia (LORD). City of Mexico (SCLATER & SALVIN, 1869, 362). Breeds in pine region of Mt. Orizaba.

This species, though somewhat resembling C. purpureus, may be easily distinguished from it by the streaked lower tail-coverts (of both sexes), and by the pileum being much more intensely red than any other portion in the male. The female resembles more in markings that of frontalis, but has an entirely different shaped bill, and is much larger; the streaks above very conspicuous, instead of nearly obsolete. The side of the head lacks the conspicuous light and dark longitudinal areas observable in purpureus.

The young of both sexes resemble the adult female, but the streaks are less sharply defined, and the wing-feathers are broadly edged with light earth-brown.

In autumn and winter, as in all the other species, the red tints are softer and more purplish than in spring and summer.

HABITS. Cassin’s Purple Finch is the largest of the American birds of this genus, and is not only conspicuously different from all in size, but also in other respects. It is found between the great Central Plains and the coast range of mountains, being one of the common birds of Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and Eastern California. Dr. Cooper found these birds in large numbers about Lake Tahoe in California. They were all in their brown plumage, and seemed so much like the C. californicus in their habits that he mistook them for that species. He noticed in them a very peculiar call-note as they flew, reminding him of that of Pyranga, and quite different from the other Carpodaci. The song of these birds, as he afterwards heard it, was much louder and finer than that of C. californicus, and more original in style. He is not familiar with their other habits, and has never met with them in the Colorado Valley. They have been procured from Fort Thorne, Pueblo Creek, and Alberquerque, New Mexico. Mr. Ridgway met with these birds in the Wahsatch Mountains, June 26, 1869, in Parley’s Park, Utah, where he found them breeding. Their nest was in the top of a cottonwood-tree near the cañon stream, about forty feet from the ground. It is a soft homogeneous structure, flattened in shape, and with only a slight depression. It is composed principally of roots and twigs, lined with softer materials of the same, interspersed with moss, cotton, and other soft substances. It is two inches in height with a width of four and a half inches. The cavity is about an inch deep.

In his Report on the birds of Mr. King’s survey, Mr. Ridgway states that he found this Linnet in the greatest abundance among the pines of the Sierra Nevada, near Carson City. It was next seen among the cedars and nut-pines of the East Humboldt Mountains, and again in the pine woods and cottonwood-trees along the streams on the Wahsatch Mountains. It breeds in all these localities, and is in its habits essentially, though not exclusively, resident among the pines. March 21, 1868, Mr. Ridgway observed flocks of these birds near Carson City. They were found in every portion of the woods, feeding among the branches of the pine-trees. They were all in full song, the females as well as the males. A week later he again found them common among the isolated pines in the fields at the foot of the Sierras, alighting on the trees in companies. Their notes resemble the song of the C. purpureus, but are finer and more musical. They have a great resemblance to the warblings of the Vireo flavifrons, but the passages in its song as much excel those of the Vireo in sweetness as they are surpassed in richness by the warblings of the latter. When one of two females of this species had been killed, the survivor, missing her companion, returned immediately to the tree and hopped from branch to branch, and then alighted on the ground by the side of her dead associate, lamenting her in sweet and plaintive cries.

By the 4th of April the pine-trees about Carson City were alive with these handsome birds, all of whom were in full song. So many were singing simultaneously that the chorus was almost deafening, yet was most exquisitely pleasing.

The nests of this bird were found by Mr. Ridgway in various situations, such as a box-elder bush, the tops of cottonwood and aspen trees, and similar situations. The eggs, four in number, are in size .82 by .63 of an inch, oval in shape, pointed at the smaller end, of a light bluish-green ground, dotted around the larger end with slate, lilac, and a blackish-brown.

Specimens were obtained by Dr. Sartorius, during the breeding-season (June, 1864), in the pine forests of Mt. Orizaba. A careful comparison shows no difference from birds procured in the same month in Nevada.

Carpodacus purpureus, GRAY.

EASTERN PURPLE FINCH.

Fringilla purpurea, GMELIN, Syst. Nat. I, 1788, 923.—WILSON, Am. Orn. I, 1808, 119, pl. vii, f. 4.—IB. V, 1812, 87, pl. xlii, f. 3.—AUD. Orn. Biog. I, 1831, 24; V, 200, pl. iv. Hæmorrhous purpurea, SWAINSON, Birds, II, 1837, 295. Erythrospiza purpurea, BP. List, 1838.—AUD. Birds Am. III, 1841, 170, pl. cxcvi. Carpodacus purpureus, GRAY’S Genera, 1844-49.—BON. & SCHLEGEL, Mon. des Loxiens, 14, tab. xv.—BAIRD, Birds N. Am. 1858, 412.—SAMUELS, Birds N. Eng. 285. ? Loxia violacea, LINN. Syst. Nat. 1766, 306, 43. (Very uncertain.) Purple Finch, CATESBY, PENNANT, LATH. Hemp-Bird, BARTRAM.

SP. CHAR. Second quill longest; first shorter than third, considerably longer than the fourth. Body crimson, palest on the rump and breast, darkest across the middle of back and wing-coverts, where the feathers have dusky centres. The red extends below continuously to the lower part of the breast, and in spots to the tibiæ. The belly and under tail-coverts white, streaked faintly with brown, except in the very middle. Edges of wings and tail-feathers brownish-red; lesser coverts like the back. Two reddish bands across the wings (over the ends of the middle and greater coverts). Lores dull grayish. Length, 6.25 inches; wing, 3.34; tail, 2.50; bill above, .46. Female. Olivaceous-brown above; brighter on the rump. Beneath white; all the feathers everywhere streaked with brown, except on the middle of the belly and under coverts. A superciliary light stripe.

HAB. North America, from Atlantic to the high Central Plains.

HABITS. The Purple Finch is a common species from Georgia to the plains of the Saskatchewan, and as far west as the Great Plains, beyond which it seems to be replaced by another race, or closely allied species. It breeds from about latitude 40° to perhaps 60°, and in most parts between these parallels is a rather common bird in suitable localities. A few are occasionally found during the winter in Massachusetts, but usually they all pass farther south. In the State of South Carolina they are especially abundant throughout the winter, or from October until April.

Dr. Coues states that the Purple Finch is a very abundant winter resident near Washington, arriving early in October and remaining until May, being eminently gregarious. Stragglers were seen until nearly June, but the majority had departed as the leaves expanded. They were most common in high open woods, and were observed to feed chiefly on tender young buds of trees. They were in full song before they took their departure.

They make their first appearance in regular migrations, in Massachusetts, from the 10th to the 20th of May, and occasionally a few are seen earlier. They are often unwelcome visitors to the fruit-growers, having a great fondness for the blossoms of the peach, cherry, plum, and apple. They will also feed upon other kinds of buds and blossoms. They have a great predilection for evergreen trees, especially the fir, the spruce, and the red cedar, and most generally build their nests in these trees. In summer they feed on seeds, insects, and berries of the honeysuckle and other shrubs.

The Purple Finch, or, as it is generally known in New England, the Linnet, is one of our sweetest, best, and most constant songsters, and is often trapped and sold as caged birds. They soon become accustomed and partially reconciled to their confinement, but sing only during a small part of the year. When one of these birds, confined in a cage, is hung outside the house, in the country, he is sure to draw around him quite a number of his species, and this furnishes the dealer a ready means of capturing them.

This Finch was once regarded as quite rare in the vicinity of Boston, so much so that during a four years’ residence in Cambridge, when collections of nests and eggs had many votaries, not a single nest of this species was obtained by any one. Since then, from some cause, probably the increase of gardens, groves of evergreens, and other localities favorable for their preservation and reproduction, these graceful little Finches have become quite abundant in places propitious for their residence. No less than seven pairs of these favorite songsters took up their abode in my grounds at Hingham in a single summer, and two had nests in the same tree, one of which was at least sixty feet from the ground, on the very top of a tall fir. These several pairs, as a general thing, lived together very harmoniously, save only when one would approach too near the favorite station of another, when the latter would begin to bristle up his crest, and give very evident hints that his near presence was not agreeable. The extreme southern end of the ridge-pole of the house had been, for several summers, the favorite post for the patriarch of the flock, from which at morning and at evening he made the neighborhood vocal with his melody. If in his absence any other of these birds ventured to occupy his position, there was always sure to be a disturbance on his return, if it was not instantly vacated. These encounters were frequent, and always very amusing. Discretion usually took the place of valor on the part of the intruder.

The song of the Purple Finch resembles that of the Canary, and though less varied and powerful, is softer, sweeter, and more touching and pleasing. The notes of this species may be heard from the last of May until late in September, and in the long summer evenings are often continued until after it is quite dark. Their song has all the beauty and pathos of the Warbling Vireo, and greatly resembles it, but is more powerful and full in tone. It is a very interesting sight to watch one of these little performers in the midst of his song. He appears perfectly absorbed in his work, his form dilates, his crest is erected, his throat expands, and he seems to be utterly unconscious of all around him. But let an intruder of his own race appear within a few feet of the singer, and the song instantly ceases, and in a violent fit of indignation he chases him away.

The flight of the Purple Finch is said by Mr. Audubon to resemble that of the Green Finch of Europe. They fly in compact flocks, with an undulating motion, alighting all at once, and then instantly, as if suddenly alarmed, take again to flight only to return to the same tree. They then immediately make each his separate way to the ends of the branches, and commence eating the buds. The food they take to their young is juicy berries and the softer portions of the young cones of the fir and spruce.

They nest generally in firs, spruces, or cedar-trees, though occasionally on the upper branches of a high apple-tree. Their nests are usually placed upon a branch, rather than interlaced between its forked twigs. I have known them not more than five feet from the ground, and at other times on the highest point of a lofty fir-tree. The nests are, for the most part, somewhat flat and shallow structures, not more than two and a half inches in height, and about three and a half in breadth. The walls of the nest average less than an inch, and the cavity corresponds to its general shape and form. The framework of the nest is usually made of small denuded vegetable fibres, stems of grasses, strips of bark, and woody fragments. The upper rim of the nest is often a curious intertwining of dry herbaceous stems, the ends of which project above the nest itself in the manner of a low palisade. The inner nest is made up of minute vegetable fibres, closely interwoven. There is usually no other lining than this. At other times these nests are largely made up of small dark-colored rootlets of wooded plants, lined with finer materials of the same, occasionally mingled with the down of birds and the fur of small animals.

The eggs of the Purple Finch vary greatly in size, and somewhat in shape. Generally they are of an oblong oval, pointed considerably at one end. Their length varies from .92 to .81 of an inch, and their breadth from .70 to .60. Their color is a pale shade of emerald-green, spotted with dark brown, almost black, chiefly about the larger end. The ground-color is much brighter when the eggs are fresh, and soon fades upon exposure to light, and even when kept in a close drawer.

Carpodacus purpureus, var. californicus, BAIRD.

THE CALIFORNIA PURPLE FINCH.

Carpodacus californicus, BAIRD, Birds N. Am. 1858, 413, pl. lxxii, f. 23.—COOPER & SUCKLEY, 196.—COOPER, Orn. Cal. 1, 154.

SP. CHAR. Similar to purpureus. Third quill longest; first shorter than the fourth. Purple of head and rump much darker than in C. purpureus; the head with a broad supra-orbital lateral band of lighter purple. Length 6.20; wing, 3.20; tail, 2.60.

HAB. Pacific Province of United States.

The female of the western type differs from that of the eastern in being more olivaceous above, and in having the streaks below rather larger, and not so well defined. There appears to be a difference in the marking of the wings. In eastern C. purpureus there is usually a well-marked whitish band across the ends of the middle coverts, while the greater coverts, though margined externally by paler, have a still lighter bar across the posterior extremity, which is not seen in the western bird.

HABITS. The Californian Purple Pinch is found throughout the Pacific coast, from the Straits of Fuca to California, as far south as Monterey. Dr. Cooper states that this species is rather a northern bird, being common at the Columbia River, and even farther north, while in California it has not been found south of Monterey on the coast, and Fort Tejon in the Sierra Nevada. In summer they frequent the mountain forests, especially those in part composed of Coniferæ. In winter they descend to the valleys, where they are found associating with the more common and familiar C. frontalis. He met with them in May on the summits of the coast range toward Santa Cruz, but they were not very numerous. They then had nests, though he did not succeed in finding them.

The song of the California Linnet is quite loud and varied, often resembling that of other birds, especially Vireos and Dendroicæ, for which Dr. Cooper has often mistaken it. Their food consists of seeds, berries, and the buds of trees. Their nest and eggs are unknown, but probably resemble those of C. purpureus.

Carpodacus frontalis, SCLATER.

HOUSE LINNET; CRIMSON-FRONTED FINCH; BURION.

Fringilla frontalis, SAY, Long’s Exped. R. Mts. II, 1824, 40. (For other synonymes see under the different varieties.)

SP. CHAR. Bill short, nearly as deep as broad; culmen much curved, commissure arched; lower mandible nearly as deep as the upper. Tail more than three fourths as long as wing, slightly emarginated. Wing and tail feathers without reddish edges; lower tail-coverts and abdomen with broad streaks of dusky. General color above, including wings, tail, and upper tail-coverts, brownish-gray, the feathers with lighter edges. Beneath white, each feather with a medial streak of dusky. Male. A broad frontal crescent, extending back in a superciliary stripe to the occiput, a patch on the rump (not the upper tail-coverts), and an area covering cheeks, chin, throat, and jugulum red,—bright scarlet in spring, rosy in fall. Female without the red, which is replaced by a uniform streaking. Young resembling the female, but streaks less sharply defined; those above more distinct. Wing-coverts broadly edged with light earth-brown.

This species inhabits the western regions of North America, from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific; and Mexico, except, perhaps, the eastern portion. In this range of distribution it occurs in three races, which, taking extreme examples, are well marked, but when a large series is examined are found to grade insensibly into each other.

The above description is general, being modified only by additional characters in the several races. The normal plumage is perhaps represented in the central race,—the true frontalis, as restricted,—which inhabits the Middle Province of the United States, and is nearly as described above; the red of the male of this style is of a bright scarlet tint, and in nearly all specimens shows a tendency to escape the boundaries above indicated. As we go south into Mexico, we find the red strictly confined within those limits, very sharply defined; and, under the tropical influence, intensified into a very bright carmine tint; this latter is the C. hæmorrhous of authors. Following the var. frontalis westward, we find it gradually changing, the red invading more and more the other portions, until, in specimens from the coast of California and from Cape St. Lucas, it is spread over all portions, except the anal region, wing, and tail,—though always brightest within those outlines which confine it in the two preceding varieties. In extreme examples of the latter race,—the C. rhodocolpus of Cabanis,—the red even obliterates the streaks on the abdomen. The spreading of the red is seen in other birds of the Pacific region, this case being exactly paralleled by the Sphyropicus ruber, in its relation to S. nuchalis or S. varius.

The females and young of the three races are quite difficult to distinguish from each other, the locality being the best means of identifying them.

Carpodacus frontalis, var. frontalis, GRAY.

CRIMSON-FRONTED FINCH; BURION.

Fringilla frontalis, SAY, Long’s Exp. II, 1824, 40.—(?) AUD. Orn. Biog. V, 1839, 230, pl. ccccxxiv. Pyrrhula f. BONAP. Am. Orn. I, 1825, 49, pl. vi. Erythrospiza f. BON. List, 1838.—IB. P. Z. S. 1837, 112.—(?) AUD. Syn. 1839, 125.—IB. Birds Am. III, 1841, 175, pl. cxcvii.—GAMB. J. A. N. S. 2d series, I, 1847, 53. Fringilla (Pyrrhula) f. GAMB. P. A. N. S. I, 1843, 262. Carpodacus f. GRAY, Gen. 1844-49.—MCCALL, P. A. N. S. V, 1851, 219.—BAIRD, Birds N. Am. 1858, 415. ? Carpodacus obscurus, MCCALL, P. A. N. S. V, June, 1851, 220, Santa Fé, N. M. Carpodacus familiaris, MCCALL, P. A. N. S. VII, April, 1852, 61, Santa Fé, N. M.

SP. CHAR. (♂ 58,589, Great Salt Lake City, Utah, June 1, 1869.) Above brownish-gray, faintly glossed with red on the nape and back; wing and tail feathers passing into lighter on their edges, and dorsal feathers with obsolete shaft-streaks of darker. A frontal band, about as wide as the length of the culmen, continuing back in a superciliary stripe to the occiput, throat, jugulum, and a patch on the lower part of the rump (but not on upper tail-coverts) carmine-scarlet. Rest of lower parts white, each feather with a medial streak of brown like the back. Wing, 3.10; tail, 2.60; culmen, .38; tarsus, .65; middle toe, .52.

(♀ 58,590, Salt Lake City, June 21, 1869.) Similar, but red entirely absent, the throat and jugulum being white streaked with brown, and the front, rump, etc., grayish, obsoletely streaked with darker. Wing, 3.00; tail, 2.40.

(Juv. 40,799, Fort Whipple, Arizona, June 5, 1865.) Generally similar to the ad. ♀, but more brownish, and the wing-feathers passing into dull buffy-ochraceous on their edges; streaks beneath narrower and less distinct.

In winter the red is softer and less sharply defined, and usually of a more purplish tint; the markings generally more blended.

HAB. Middle Province of the United States, from Rocky Mountains to the interior valleys of California.

HABITS. This form of the House Finch appears to be a very common bird throughout the interior region of the United States, extending to New Mexico and Arizona on the south and southeast, and probably to Mexico. On the Pacific coast it is replaced by another and closely allied variety.

Dr. Woodhouse states that his attention was first called to this interesting little songster while at Sante Fé. It was there known to the American residents as the “Adobe Finch.” By the Mexicans they were called Buriones. He found them exceedingly tame, building about the dwellings, churches, and other buildings, in every nook and corner, and even entering the houses to pick up crumbs. They are never disturbed by the inhabitants. He adds that at the first dawn of the morning they commence a very sweet and clear warble, which he was quite unable to do justice to by any verbal description. He has often in the early morning listened with admiration and gratification to the song of this bird, which is deservedly a great favorite. He found it throughout New Mexico, and beyond. He did not distinguish it from the coast variety.

Dr. Coues also found this bird very abundant in Arizona, where it is a permanent resident, but most abundant in spring and fall. He describes it as eminently gregarious. He found it in all situations, but most common in the spring among the groves of willows and poplars, on the buds of which it feeds. He met with this species all the way from the Rio Grande through New Mexico and Arizona to California, and appears to have noted no differences between this form and the coast variety. He also mentions finding, during a few days’ stay in the New Mexican village of Los Pinos, near Alberquerque, on the Rio Grande, this pretty little Finch the most common and characteristic of the local birds. It was there breeding indifferently in the courtyards, sheds, under porticos or eaves, and also in the forks of trees in the streets. It had sharp conflicts with the Barn Swallows, whose nests it often took possession of, and was a lively and most agreeable feature in the dirty towns which it honored with its presence; and its songs were at once sweet, clear, and exquisitely melodious.

Dr. Cooper met with these birds among the barren and rocky hills near the Colorado.

Mr. Ridgway, who found these birds breeding in large numbers at Pyramid Lake, informs me that their nests were usually placed in clefts in rocks, or in a cave. Near Salt Lake City they were also very common, building their nests among the shrubs known as the wild mahogany, on the hills, but never frequenting the higher regions of the mountains.

The eggs of this bird, which are not distinguishable from those of the Pacific coast form, have a delicate pale-blue ground-color, which is very fugitive, and fades even in the drawers of a cabinet. They are sparingly marked, chiefly around the more obtuse end, with spots and lines of black and a dark brown. They are of oval shape, elongate and pointed at one end, and measure .80 of an inch in length by .60 in breadth.

Carpodacus frontalis, var. rhodocolpus, CABAN.

CALIFORNIA HOUSE-FINCH; RED-HEADED LINNET; BURION.

? Pyrrhula cruentata, LESSON, Rev. Zoöl. 1839, 101. _Carpodacus rhodocolpus_, CABANIS, Mus. Hein. 1851, 166.—SCLATER, P. Z. S. 1856, 304. Carpodacus frontalis, BON. & SCHLEG. Mon. des Lox. 1850, tab. xvi, f. 1.—IB. Consp. 1850, 533.—BAIRD, Birds N. Am. 1858, 415 (in part).—COOPER, Orn. Cal. 1, 156. House Finch, GRAYSON, Hesperian, II, 1859, 7, plate. Carpodacus familiaris, HEERMANN, X, 50 (nest).

SP. CHAR. (♂ 12,973, Cape St. Lucas.) Head, neck, jugulum, breast, upper part of abdomen and sides, and rump, bright carmine-scarlet, dullest on the centre of the crown and auriculars; rest of the upper parts brownish-gray, glossed with red except on the wings, which have the feathers with distinctly lighter edges. Anal region, flanks, and crissum white, the feathers with shaft-streaks of brown. Wing, 3.00; tail, 2.60; culmen, .45; tarsus, .62; middle toe, .50.

Female and Juv. similar to var. frontalis, but colors darker.

HAB. Coast region of Pacific Province, and peninsula of Lower California.

The male described above represents about the average plumage of this form; an extreme example is No. 26,546, Cape St. Lucas, which is almost entirely of a wine-red color, this covering the whole lower parts, except the anal region, and obliterating the streaks; the wings even are tinged with red. Still, on the head the red (a wine-purple tint) is brightest within those limits to which it is confined in the normal plumage.

HABITS. This variety of the House Finch is a very common bird throughout the Pacific coast, from Oregon to Mexico. Mr. Ridgway states that he found this species the most common and familiar of all the birds of the Sacramento Valley. It is a very common cage-bird, being highly prized for its song, which in power is hardly inferior to that of the Canary, while it far surpasses it in sweetness. Its beautiful plumage also renders it still more attractive. The peculiarly soft and musical tweet of this bird is also very similar to that of the Canary, and is very different from the common note of the Purple Finch. This bird breeds very numerously among the shade-trees in the streets of Sacramento, as well as among the oak groves on the outskirts of that city. The males are very shy, but the females, when their nest is disturbed, keep up a lively chirping in an adjoining tree. The nest is generally situated near the extremity of a horizontal branch of a small oak, usually in a grove, occasionally in an isolated tree. In one instance it made use of an abandoned nest of a Bullock’s Oriole, and in another of that of a Cliff Swallow.

Dr. Cooper speaks of this bird as being especially abundant in all the southern portions of California, and also, according to Dr. Newberry, throughout all the valleys northward into Oregon. It is a species that is everywhere peculiar to the valleys, while the others of this genus are equally confined to the wooded mountains. Dr. Cooper also met with this species in the plains near the coast, where there are no plants higher than the wild mustard, on the seeds of which they feed. They also frequent the groves and the open forests on the summits of the coast range, but in small numbers, in company with the C. californicus. They at times feed on buds of trees, and seeds of the cottonwood and other plants. It is most abundant among ranches and gardens where, Dr. Cooper states, it does much mischief by destroying seeds and young plants, fruit and buds. For these depredations even its cheerful and constant song is not regarded as an adequate compensation; and unlike the New-Mexicans in their treatment of its kindred race, the California cultivators wage an unrelenting war upon these birds.

At San Diego, Dr. Cooper found them building as early as the 15th of March, and even a little earlier. Both the situation and the materials of their nest vary. He has found them nesting in trees, on logs and rocks, on the top rail of a picket fence, inside a window-shutter, in the holes of walls, under tiles, on the thatch of a roof, in barns and haystacks, and even between the interstices in the sticks of which the nest of a Hawk had been made, and once in the old nest of an Oriole. About dwellings they always seek the protection of man, and seem to be quite unconscious of having deserved or incurred his enmity. The materials of their nests are usually coarse grasses and weeds, with a lining of hair and fine roots. They raise two, sometimes three, broods in a season, and in the autumn assemble in large flocks, but migrate very little, if any, to the south.

Dr. Cooper states that their songs are very different from those of the other species. They are very varied and very lively, and are heard throughout the year. They are easily kept as cage-birds, but soon lose the beauty of their plumage in confinement, their bright purple colors changing to a dirty yellow.

Nuttall did not observe any of this species in Oregon.

The eggs of this bird vary from four to six in number, and are of a pale blue which readily fades into a bluish-white, and are marked with spots and lines of a dark brown or black. They are of an elongate-oval shape, and measure from .82 to .75 of an inch in length, with an average breadth of .60.

GENUS CHRYSOMITRIS, BOIE.

Chrysomitris, BOIE, Isis, 1828, 322. (Type, Fringilla spinus, LINN.) Astragalinus, CAB. Mus. Hein. 1851, 159. (Type, Fringilla tristis, LINN.) Hypacanthus, CAB. Mus. Hein. 1851, 161. (Type, Carduelis spinoides.)

[Line drawing: Chrysomitris tristis. 1521 ♀]

GEN. CHAR. Bill rather acutely conic, the tip not very sharp; the culmen slightly convex at the tip; the commissure gently curved. Nostrils concealed. Obsolete ridges on the upper mandible. Tarsi shorter than the middle toe; outer toe rather the longer, reaching to the base of the middle one. Claw of hind toe shorter than the digital portion. Wings and tail as in Ægiothus.

The colors are generally yellow, with black on the crown, throat, back, wings, and tail, varied sometimes with white.

The females want the bright markings of the male.

This genus differs from Ægiothus in a less acute and more curved bill, a much less development of the bristly feathers at the base of the bill, the claw of the hind toe shorter than its digital portion, the claws shorter and less curved and attenuated, and the outer lateral toes not extending beyond the base of the middle claw.

The species exhibit many differences among themselves, especially in the size and shape of the bill, which have been made the basis of generic distinctions. They may be distinguished as follows:—

Species and Varieties.

A. No streaks anywhere on plumage; base of tail-feathers black or white. Sexes dissimilar. (Chrysomitris.)

a. No yellow on the wings.

1. C. tristis. Inner webs of tail-feathers always whitish terminally (except in Juv.). ♂. Forehead and crown, wings and tail, deep black; rest of plumage, including the back, rich lemon-yellow; tail-coverts white. ♀. Body grayish above, dingy whitish beneath, stained with yellow; no black on head; wings and tail duller black. Juv. Fulvous-umber above, with markings of reddish-ochraceous on the wings; beneath, dilute-yellow washed with fulvous. Hab. Whole of temperate and warm North America.

2. C. psaltria. Inner webs of tail-feathers never whitish terminally. ♂. Beneath yellow, including the lower tail-coverts; above black, with or without olive-green on the back. ♀. Without any black, the yellow duller.

Tail with white on inner webs; tertials with large white spots.

♂. Auriculars, nape, back, and rump olive-green. Hab. Rocky Mountains of United States … var. psaltria.

♂. Auriculars black; nape, back, and rump green clouded with black. Hab. Arizona … var. arizonæ.

♂. Auriculars, nape, back, and rump entirely black. Hab. Middle America … var. mexicana.

Tail without any white on inner webs; tertials without white spots.

♂. Auriculars, nape, back, and rump wholly black. Hab. Panama and New Granada … var. columbiana.

b. Terminal half of outer webs of wing-coverts and secondaries yellow.

3. C. lawrencii. Prevailing color ashy, lighter beneath. ♂. A large patch on the breast, the rump, and most of the outer surface of the wing, yellow; forehead, crown, lores, all round base of bill, chin, wings (beneath the yellow), and tail black. ♀. Lacking the black, and with the yellow only indicated. Hab. California and Southwestern Arizona.

B. Whole body and head thickly streaked; bases of tail-feathers yellow. Sexes alike. (Astragalinus.)

4. C. pinus. Above brownish-gray, beneath white, with conspicuous dusky streaks everywhere; two light bands on the wing; bases of secondaries and primaries yellow. Hab. Whole of North America.

Three species of Chrysomitris, given by Mr. Audubon, are to be erased from the list: C. stanleyi, C. yarrelli, and C. magellanica. If, as he states, he killed specimens of the latter in Kentucky, they must have belonged to the C. notata of Dubus, a Mexican species, not since met with in our limits. The other two were given him as coming from California,—a statement we now know to be incorrect, both belonging to South America.

Chrysomitris tristis, BON.

YELLOW-BIRD; THISTLE-BIRD.

Fringilla tristis, LINN. Syst. Nat. I, 1766, 320.—WILS. Am. Orn. I, 1808, 20, pl. i, f. 2.—AUD. Orn. Biog. I, 1831, 172; V, 510, pl. xxxiii. Carduelis tristis, BON. Obs. Wils. 1825, No. 96.—AUD. Birds Am. II, 1841, 129, pl. clxxxi.—MAX. Cab. Journ. vi, 1858, 281. Chrysomitris tristis, BON. List, 1838.—NEWBERRY, Zoöl. Cal. & Or. Route; Rep. P. R. R. Surv. VII, IV, 1857, 87.—BAIRD, Birds N. Am. 1858, 421.—COOPER & SUCKLEY, 197.—COOPER, Orn. Cal. 1, 167. Astragalinus tristis, CABANIS, Mus. Hein. 1851, 159 (type). Carduelis americana, (EDWARDS,) SW. & RICH. F. B. A. II, 1831, 268. Golden Finch, PENNANT. _American Goldfinch_, EDWARDS. _Chardonneret jaune; Chardonneret du Canada; Tarin de la Nouvelle Yorck_, BUFFON.—IB. Pl. enl., pl. ccii, f. 2, pl. ccxcii, f. 1.—SAMUELS, Birds N. Eng. 288.

SP. CHAR. Male. Bright gamboge-yellow; crown, wings, and tail black. Lesser wing-coverts, band across the end of greater ones, ends of secondaries and tertiaries, inner margins of tail-feathers, upper and under tail-coverts, and tibia white. Length, 5.25 inches; wing, 3.00. Female. Yellowish-gray above; greenish-yellow below. No black on forehead. Wing and tail much as in the male. Young. Reddish-olive above; fulvous-yellow below; two broad bands across coverts, and broad edges to last half of secondaries pale rufous.

HAB. North America generally.

In winter the yellow is replaced by a yellowish-brown; the black of the crown wanting, that of wings and tail browner. The throat is generally yellowish; the under parts ashy-brown, passing behind into white.

There are no observable differences between eastern and western specimens.

HABITS. The common American Goldfinch is found throughout the greater portion of North America, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Sir John Richardson met with it in the fur regions, where it is one of the tardiest of the summer visitors, and whence it departs early in September. The specimen described by him was taken June 29. At the extreme South it is not uncommon, according to Dresser, around San Antonio, and Dr. Woodhouse found it abundant both in Texas and in the Indian Territory. Dr. Coues did not find it in Arizona, nor does Sumichrast give it as a bird of Vera Cruz. Dr. Newberry found this Finch quite common throughout his route to the Columbia, this sweet songster, he states, having been a constant source of pleasure in the interior both of California and Oregon, far from the haunts of men, where everything else was new and strange. But Dr. Suckley, though he looked carefully for this species about Puget Sound, in the most appropriate situations, was unable to find any, and did not believe that any existed there. Dr. Cooper states that it is, however, quite abundant on the Columbia and along the coast near its mouth.

The last-named writer states that this species is a constant resident in all the western parts of California, but he met with none on the Colorado. They become rare on the coast at the Columbia, but farther in the interior are found as far north as latitude 49°. They breed as far south as San Diego, but seem to avoid the hot interior valleys, as well as the mountains. Their favorite resorts are where thistles and other composite plants abound, and also groves of willow and cottonwood, upon the seeds of which they feed largely. In winter the seeds of the buttonwood supply their chief subsistence.

The common Goldfinch was seen in abundance by Mr. Ridgway only in the vicinity of Sacramento City, associated with the Carpodacus frontalis, and often nesting in the same tree. In the interior this species was rarely seen, and only one specimen was secured in the Truckee Valley in May, and not noticed afterwards. It was, however, found breeding in the Uintah Mountains, where its nest and eggs were obtained. The nests procured by Mr. Ridgway were all found about June 6, except one, ten days later, showing that these birds are four or five weeks earlier in their breeding on the Pacific than on the Atlantic coast. In the Uintah Mountains they were breeding, as at the East, in July.

The Goldfinch is to a large extent gregarious and nomadic in its habits, and only for a short portion of the year do these birds separate into pairs for the purposes of reproduction. During at least three fourths of the year they associate in small flocks, and wander about in an irregular and uncertain manner in quest of their food. They are resident throughout the year in New England, and also throughout the greater portion of the country, their presence or absence being regulated to a large extent by the abundance, scarcity, or absence of their favorite kinds of food. In the winter, the seeds of the taller weeds are their principal means of subsistence. In the summer, the seeds of the thistle and other plants and weeds are sought out by these interesting and busy gleaners. They are abundant in gardens, and as a general thing do very little harm, and a vast amount of benefit in the destruction of the seeds of troublesome weeds. As, however, they do not always discriminate between seeds that are troublesome and those that are desirable, the Goldfinches are unwelcome visitors to the farmers who seek to raise their own seeds of the lettuce, turnip, and other similar vegetables. They are also very fond of the seeds of the sunflower.

Owing possibly to the scarcity of proper food for their young in the early summer, the Goldfinches are quite late before they mate and raise their single brood. It is usually past the 10th of July before their nests are constructed, and often September before their broods are ready to fly.

The song of the Goldfinch—very different from their usual plaintive cry or call-note, uttered as they are flying or when they are feeding—is very sweet, brilliant, and pleasing; most so, indeed, when given as a solo, with no other of its kindred within hearing. I know of none of our common singers that excel it in either respect. Its notes are higher and more flute-like, and its song is more prolonged than that of the Purple Finch. Where large flocks are found in the spring or early summer, the males often join in a very curious and remarkable concert, in which the voices of the several performers do not always accord. In spite of this frequent want of harmony, these concerts are varied and pleasing, now ringing like the loud voices of the Canary, and now sinking into a low soft warble.

During the warm summer weather the Goldfinch is very fond of bathing, and the sandy shelving margins of brooks are always their favorite places of resort for this purpose. I do not think they ever raise more than a single brood in a season in New England, and are in this somewhat irregular, depositing their eggs from July 10 to September, as it may happen.

They usually select a small upright tree, such as a young elm, apple, or pear, or a tall shrub, for their nest, which they rarely place higher than ten feet from the ground. Than the nest of our Goldfinch we have no more beautiful specimen either of the basket in shape or the felted in structure. Symmetrical in form, delicately and beautifully woven, and ingeniously and firmly fastened around the forked twigs with which it is interlaced, it is an exquisite example of architectural beauty and finish. A beautiful specimen from Wisconsin may be taken as typical. It measures three inches in diameter and two in height. The cavity is one and a half inches wide at the rim, and the depth is the same. The base of this nest is a commingling of soft vegetable wool, very fine stems of dried grasses, and fine strips of bark, all being in very fine shreds. The sides, rim, and general exterior of the nest is made up, to a large extent, of fine slender vegetable fibres, interwrought with white and maroon-colored vegetable wool. These materials are closely and densely felted together. The inner nest is softly and thoroughly lined with a softer felting made of the plumose appendages or pappus of the seeds of composite plants.

The eggs, usually five, rarely six in number, are of a uniform bluish-white, sharply pointed at one and rounded at the other end. They measure from .65 to .67 of an inch in length and from .50 to .55 in breadth. Dr. Cooper gives their measurement as .60 by .50; but of the contents of seven nests before me not an egg is less than .65 in length, and but one so small as .50 in breadth.

A nest of this Finch, built in a young elm-tree in Hingham, eight feet from the ground, was begun July 27, finished and the first egg laid August 1. By the 4th five eggs had been deposited, and on the 16th they had all been hatched.

Chrysomitris psaltria, var. psaltria, BONAP.

ROCKY MOUNTAIN GOLDFINCH; ARKANSAS GOLDFINCH.

Fringilla psaltria, SAY, Long’s Exped. R. Mts. II, 1823, 40.—AUD. Orn. Biog. V, 1839, 85, pl. cccxciv. Fringilla (Carduelis) psaltria, BON. Am. Orn. I, 1825, 54, pl. vi, f. 3. Carduelis psaltria, AUD. Syn. 1839, 117.—IB. Birds Am. III, 1841, 134, pl. clxxxiii. Chrysomitris psaltria, BP. List, 1838.—IB. Consp. 1850, 516.—GAMBEL, Jour. A. N. S. 2d series I, 1847, 52 (female).—BAIRD, Birds N. Am. 1858, 422.—COOPER, Orn. Cal. 1, 168.

SP. CHAR. Male. Upper parts and sides of head and neck olive-green. Hood, but not sides of head below eyes, lores (or auriculars?), upper tail-coverts, wings, and tail black. Beneath bright yellow. A band across the tips of the greater coverts, the ends of nearly all the quills, the outer edges of the tertiaries, the extreme bases of all the primaries except the outer two, and a long rectangular patch on the inner webs of the outer three tail-feathers near the middle, white. Female with the upper parts generally, and the sides olive-green; the wings and tail brown, their white marks as in the male. Length, 4.25; wing, 2.40; tail, 1.85. Young like the female, but wing-bands more fulvous.

HAB. Southern Rocky Mountains to the coast of California; north to Salt Lake City (June 19; RIDGWAY), and Siskiyou Co., Cal. (VUILLE); south to Sonora (Arispe, Feb. 26; E. S. WAKEFIELD).

With quite a small series of specimens, a perfect transition can be shown from the typical C. psaltria, as above described, to the C. columbianus, the opposite extreme (see table, page 471). The former is the most northern, the latter the most southern form; arizonæ and mexicana, intermediate in habitat, are also as strikingly so in plumage. The difference is in the quantity of the black, this color predominating over the olive of the back and the white of wings and tail, in proportion as we go southward. There cannot, upon the whole, be any doubt that they are all specifically the same. The females can scarcely be distinguished.

HABITS. The Arkansas Finch was first discovered in Long’s expedition to the Rocky Mountains, and described by Say in 1823. It has since been met with in New Mexico and in various parts of California. Dr. Cooper did not find this species in the Colorado Valley, although Dr. Kennerly met with it along Williams Fork, in New Mexico. Dr. Woodhouse did not see it in his route to the Zuñi River, either in New Mexico or the Indian Territory.

Dr. Kennerly met with these birds in the month of February. He found them very abundant all along the banks of the Bill Williams Fork. They were feeding on the young buds of the cottonwood trees. At that season they were in small flocks, and the only note he heard from them was a short chirp, as they hopped from twig to twig, or flew from one tree to another.

Dr. Heermann states that he found these Finches abundant in the northern mining regions of California, frequenting and feeding in the same localities with the C. lawrencii, and often associated with the Pine Finch. He adds that, while thus associated, he shot a large number of both species. They seemed to be employed, at the time, in picking out the fine gravel mixed in the mud used as mortar for a chimney, flying away at each discharge of the gun, but returning, in a few minutes, to the same place.

Mr. Audubon regarded this species as accidental in Louisiana, having procured individuals a few miles from Bayou Sara.

The Arkansas Goldfinch was found by Mr. Ridgway among the Wahsatch Mountains, his attention being at once drawn to it by its curious notes. He first met with it in “City-Creek Cañon,” near Salt Lake City, where individuals of it were frequently found mixed in with flocks of C. pinus. The note of this bird is remarkable for its power and very sad tone. The ordinary note is a plaintive, mellow, whistling call, impossible to describe, and so inflected as to produce a very mournful effect. When the bird takes to flight, it is changed to a simple cheer, similar to the anxious notes of the male Agelaius phœniceus, uttered when its nest is disturbed. This species was quite rare, not being so common as either C. pinus or C. tristis. Its nest was found in Parley’s Park, Wahsatch Mountains, June 22, in the top of a willow-bush near a stream.

At San Diego, and along the whole coast border of California, Dr. Cooper thinks that this Finch is rather rare. In the interior valleys they seem to be quite common. They also breed in small numbers in the Coast Range, near Santa Cruz. He states that their habits are very similar to those of the C. tristis, though they feed more on the ground, and more upon weeds than on trees, and are even more gregarious, remaining associated in flocks up to the first of June. Their song greatly resembles that of the common Goldfinch, but is much fainter.

Dr. Cooper never met with their nest, nor has he received any description of it. Mr. Xantus found one, containing four eggs, on the branch of an Obione, about ten feet from the ground. This was at Fort Tejon, the first of May. Dr. Canfield has also found their nests, in considerable numbers, near Monterey. They are built in the forks of trees, in the same manner with the tristis, are structures of remarkable beauty, and evince great skill in the architects. They contain usually four or five eggs. Except in size, their eggs greatly resemble those of the C. tristis, being of a uniform greenish-white, unspotted, of a rounded-oval shape, sharply pointed at one end. They measure .60 by .50 of an inch.

Chrysomitris psaltria, var. arizonæ, COUES.

ARIZONA GOLDFINCH.

Chrysomitris mexicana, var. arizonæ, COUES, P. A. N. S. 1866.— COOPER, Orn. Cal. 1, 170.

SP. CHAR. (♂ 37,092, Fort Wingate, Arizona, June 28, 1864.) Above, including auriculars, glossy black, with a faint bluish reflection; nape, back, and rump much mixed with olive-green, this rather predominating; larger coverts broadly tipped with grayish-white; tertials, with almost the entire exposed portion of the outer webs, white; a patch on base of primaries, and the inner webs of the tail-feathers, except the ends, white. Beneath entirely lemon-yellow. Wing, 2.50; tail, 1.70; culmen, .35; tarsus, .50.

HAB. Southern boundary of Arizona and New Mexico, extending southward into Mexico, and gradually changing into mexicana, and northward into psaltria.

The specimen described above is from a series collected in Arizona by Dr. Coues: these examples vary in the relative amount of black and olive on the back, some having one, and others the other color predominating; the type selected is one which represents about the average plumage of this species from Arizona.

HABITS. Dr. Coues found these birds abundant summer residents of Arizona, where they are said to arrive the last of April and to remain until the middle of September. In August the males are stated to assume the dull plumage of the females. In autumn they become decidedly gregarious, and feed almost exclusively upon buds and seeds. He thinks they are not so numerous in the southern portions of the Territory. In a letter received from him he remarks:—

“This bird was found to be common in New Mexico near Fort Wingate, at the eastern base of the main chain of mountains. I first observed it on the 28th of June, when I found quite a number together, and secured several specimens. They were in small troops on a rugged hillside covered with a sparse growth of junipers and stunted pines, feeding in company with the Poospiza bilineata. Judging from their actions, and from the fact that none but males were taken, I presume they were breeding in the vicinity. I found some difficulty in securing specimens, partly owing to the broken nature of the locality, and partly to the birds’ timidity in the unaccustomed presence of man. Those that were shot were all found to have the æsophagus as well as the gizzard crammed with seeds. They constantly uttered a plaintive lisping whistle as they gathered food, or as they flew from one tree to another, but their song did not strike my ear as precisely the same as that of the Goldfinch. These specimens were all in what I take to be perfect plumage, although the back was mixed with olive and black in nearly equal proportions, and the black of the pileum did not reach below the eyes to cut off the yellow under eyelid from the other yellowish parts of the head; thus closely resembling true psaltria.

“Upon my arrival at Fort Whipple in July, I found birds of this type abundant, and took a good many during the two following months, when they disappeared, and I saw none until about the first of May. A small ravine close by the fort, choked with a rank growth of weeds, was a favorite resort; there the birds could be found at nearly all times in season, in large troops, feeding in company with Chipping Sparrows, and the Spizella atrigularis. They were very tame during the latter part of the summer, would only rise when very closely approached, when they flew in a hesitating manner a short distance, and then pitched down again among the weeds to resume their busy search for food. In their undulating flight they utter their peculiar note, generally with each impulse of the wings, and keep up a continual chirping when feeding; but I did not hear their true song at this season. Some of the specimens taken were very young birds, and the species unquestionably breeds here, although I never succeeded in finding a nest.

“I should not omit to add, that whilst at Santa Fé, New Mexico, I saw caged birds that were thriving well, and apparently reconciled to confinement.”

A nest of this bird, obtained near Camp Grant, Arizona, by Dr. Palmer, is a flat and shallow structure, having a diameter of three inches, and a height of one and a quarter. The cavity is only a slight depression. This nest is made of a felting of various materials, chiefly the cotton-like down of the cottonwood-tree and other soft vegetable matter, fine stems of grasses, fragments of mosses, and various other similar materials, lined with finer materials of the same. Except in their slightly smaller size, the eggs are not distinguishably different from the preceding.

Chrysomitris psaltria, var. mexicana, BONAP.

BLACK GOLDFINCH; MEXICAN GOLDFINCH.

Carduelis mexicanus, SWAINS. Syn. Birds Mex. Phil. Mag. 1827, 435.—WAGLER, Isis, 1831, 525. Chrysomitris mexicanus, BP. Consp. Av. 1850, 516 (quotes AUD. tab. 427).—BAIRD, Birds N. Am. 1858, 423, pl. liv, f. 1. Astragalinus mexicanus, CAB. Mus. Hein. 1851, 159.—IB. Journ. für Orn. 1861, 7 (with synonymy).—COUES, P. A. N. S. 1866, 82. Fringilla melanoxantha (LICHT.), WAGLER, Isis, 1831, 525. ? Fringilla catotol, GM. Syst. Nat. I, 1788, 914. Fringilla texensis, GIRAUD, 16 Sp. Birds Tex. 1841, pl. v. f. 1 (gives white belly).—COOPER, Orn. Cal. 1, 169.

SP. CHAR. Upper parts continuously and entirely black; the feathers of the rump white subterminally, and showing this through the black; a few of the feathers with greenish-yellow between the white and the black; a few, perhaps, without black tips. The bases of the third to seventh primaries, and the ends of the tertiaries externally white. The tail is black, except the outer three feathers, in which the outer webs and tips only are this color; the rest white. Inside of wing black. Under parts of body pale yellow. Female with the black of the head and body replaced by olive-green. Length, 4.12 inches; wing, 2.25; tail, 2.00.

HAB. Mexican side of the valley of the Rio Grande, southward; Oaxaca, June (SCL. 1858, 302); Cordova (SCL. 1856, 303); Guatemala (SCL. Ibis I, 19); Costa Rica (CAB. J. 1861, 7); Panama (LAWR. N. Y. Lyc. 1861, 331; winter).

HABITS. The Mexican Goldfinch is distributed from the western side of the Rio Grande, through Mexico and Central America, to Panama. Sumichrast mentions it as found throughout the State of Vera Cruz, but most abundant in the temperate region. It breeds in the vicinity of Orizaba. It was taken in Central America, by Mr. Skinner, and has been reported from Costa Rica, and from Panama in the winter. Of its distinctive peculiarities we have no information, but they probably do not differ from those of the other forms of C. psaltria.

Chrysomitris lawrencii, BONAP.

LAWRENCE’S GOLDFINCH.

Carduelis lawrencii, CASSIN, Pr. A. N. Sc. V, Oct. 1850, 105, pl. v (California). Chrysomitris lawrencii, BON. Comptes Rendus, Dec. 1853, 913.—BAIRD, Birds N. Am. 1858, 424.—HEERM. X, S, 50 (nest).—ELLIOT, Illust. Am. B. I, pl. viii.—COOPER, Orn. Cal. 1, 171.

SP. CHAR. Male. Hood, sides of head anterior to the middle of the eye, chin, and upper part of throat, black. Sides of head, neck, and body, upper part of neck and the back, and upper tail-coverts, ash-color. Rump and lesser wing-coverts yellowish-green. Throat below the black, breast, and outer edges of all the quills (except the first primary, and passing into white behind), bright greenish-yellow. Wings black. Tail-feathers black, with a white square patch on the inner web, near the end; outer edges grayish; quills black. Female similar, with the black of the head replaced by ash. Length, about 4.70; wing, 2.75; tail, 2.30. Young like the female, but wing-bands pale fulvous, instead of yellow.

HAB. Coast of California; Fort Whipple, Arizona (COUES, P. A. N. S. 1866, 83).

HABITS. This species, now known to be so common throughout the greater portion of California, was first described by Mr. Cassin in 1850. Dr. Heermann afterwards found them very abundant throughout the northern mining regions of California, frequenting the hillsides covered with brush, the seeds and buds of which they eat with great avidity. Later in the season he found them at San Diego, in quest of grass-seeds on the level plains. They were in large flocks, and so closely packed that he shot thirteen at one discharge. Their nests, he states, are built in the fork of a bush or stunted oak, and are composed of fine grasses, lined with hair and feathers. They contain four or five pure white eggs.

Mr. Ridgway only met with this Goldfinch near the foot of the western slope of the Sierra Nevada.

Dr. Cooper met with a few of this species at Fort Mohave, on the Colorado, but found them more numerous near the coast as far north as San Francisco, at least, and also in the more northern mining regions. He has seen them about San Francisco in December, and has no doubt that they remain all the winter throughout the lower country. They seem to avoid the mountainous regions, and have not been met with in Oregon.

Their habits and their song are, in general respects, similar to those of the Goldfinch (C. tristis), but their voice is much weaker, and is higher in its pitch. Their nests, Dr. Cooper thinks, are placed, in preference, on the live-oaks; at least, he has never met with them in any other situation. They are built very much in the style of those of the Goldfinch, but are much smaller, the cavity measuring only an inch in depth and one and a half in breadth. The eggs he describes as four or five in number, pure white, and measuring .80 by .46 of an inch. He adds that they sometimes feed on the ground, on grass-seeds, as well as on buds and seeds of various weeds and trees. They were regarded by him as more of a sylvan species than the Goldfinch, and not so fond of willows and other trees growing along streams and in wet places. In the Colorado Valley they feed on the seeds of the artemisia. He did not notice any there after the middle of April. Eggs, in my own cabinet, from Monterey, identified by Dr. Canfield, are of a uniform greenish-white, exactly similar to those of C. psaltria and tristis, and measure only .58 by .45 of an inch, or less in length by .22 than as given by Dr. Cooper.

Three nests of this species obtained at Monterey, Cal., by Dr. Canfield, all exhibit more or less variations as to material and style of make. They are all more or less felted, and beautifully wrought, fully equal in artistic skill to the nests of the Goldfinch. They are about one and a half inches in height and three in diameter, and the cavity is an inch in depth and one and three quarters in diameter. The walls of these nests are soft, warm, and thick, composed of wool, both vegetable and animal, fine stems of grasses, down, feathers, and other materials, all closely matted together, and lined with the long hair of the larger animals. One of these nests is made up entirely of the finer grasses, strongly matted together.

Chrysomitris pinus, BONAP.

PINE GOLDFINCH.

Fringilla pinus, WILSON, Am. Orn. II, 1810, 133, pl. xvii, f. 1.— AUD. Orn. Biog. II, 1834, 455; V, 509, pl. clxxx. Fringilla (Carduelis) pinus, BON. Obs. Wils. 1825, No. 103. Linaria pinus, AUD. Synopsis, 1839, 115.—IB. Birds Am. III, 1841, 125, pl. clxxx. Chrysomitris pinus, BONAP. Consp. 1850, 515.—BAIRD, Birds N. Am. 1858, 425.—COOPER & SUCKLEY, 197.—COOPER, Orn. Cal. I, 172.—SAMUELS, 290. ?? Chrysomitris macroptera, DUBUS, Esq. Orn. tab. 23 (Mexico).—BP. Conspectus, 1850, 515.

[Line drawing: Chrysomitris pinus. 11096 ♀]

SP. CHAR. Tail deeply forked. Above brownish-olive. Beneath whitish, every feather streaked distinctly with dusky. Concealed bases of tail-feathers and quills, together with their inner edges, sulphur-yellow. Outer edges or quills and tail-feathers yellowish-green. Two brownish-white bands on the wing. Length. 4.75; wing, 3.00; tail, 2.20. Sexes alike. Young similar, but the white below tinged with yellow, the upper parts with reddish-brown, and there are two pale ochraceous bands on the wing.

HAB. North America from Atlantic to Pacific; Vera Cruz, plateau and alpine region (SUMICHRAST, I, 550).

Specimens from all parts of North America appear to be the same, but there is a great deal of variation among individuals. No. 10,225 ♂, Fort Tejon, California, and 51,636, Colorado Territory, are almost entirely white beneath, the streaks being hardly observable. 32,765, Mexico, and 9,524, Washington Territory, are unstreaked medially. No. 11,096, Fort Bridger, has the streaks on the sides unusually broad, and very black.

In autumn and winter a reddish-brown tinge overspreads the upper parts.

HABITS. Though classed with the Goldfinches of this country, the Pine Finch, in many respects more nearly resembles, in its habits and nidification, the Carpodaci. It is found throughout the United States, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. In the winter it extends its irregular migrations into the Central States, as far as Northern California on the Pacific, and Southern Pennsylvania on the Atlantic. It breeds throughout the British Provinces, Northern Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Michigan, and thence to Washington Territory, in all the evergreen forests.

At Calais, Me., it is resident throughout the year, and breeds there, but is much more common in the winter than in the summer. In Western Maine, Professor Verrill observed it very common, both in the spring and in the fall, but never found it breeding. He found it very abundant about the Umbagog lakes in July, where it was evidently breeding. It breeds also abundantly among the White Mountains.

Mr. Ridgway first saw the Pine Finch on the East Humboldt Mountains, where, through July and August, it was quite common, and where undoubtedly it breeds, as a young bird unable to fly was obtained. On the Wahsatch Mountains it was a very abundant species, inhabiting the pines as well as the groves of aspens in the alpine regions. It is gregarious at all times, flying in roving, screeching flocks. The notes it utters on all occasions resemble a very peculiar pronunciation of swe-er, given in a very sharp tone. When the flock suddenly takes to flight, this is changed to a more rattling outcry. A nest, containing no eggs, was found in an aspen-tree; and another, containing one egg, similar to those described elsewhere, was found in a fir-tree (Abies) situated near the extremity of a horizontal branch about twenty feet from the ground.

The Pine Finch is also a very common and resident bird in the plateau of Mexico and in the alpine regions of the State of Vera Cruz. Its common name there is Dominiguito montero. In the alpine regions Sumichrast states that it is found to the height of six thousand five hundred feet, and does not, to his knowledge, descend below three thousand feet. It most especially frequents the plateau.

Captain Blakiston met with this species on the plains of the Saskatchewan, near the Rocky Mountains, August 6, 1858.

In the eastern portion of Massachusetts it is somewhat irregular in its movements and appearance, which are supposed to be affected by the abundance or scarcity of its food elsewhere. Here it feeds chiefly on seeds of grasses and weeds, probably only after the seeds of the hemlock and other forest trees have failed it. They are usually most abundant late in the season and after heavy falls of snow farther north have diminished their means of subsistence. Mr. Maynard found it very numerous in the winter of 1859-60, remaining until quite late in the season, and again in the winter of 1868-69, remaining until the last week in May. In Western Massachusetts, according to Mr. Allen, it is a regular winter visitant, but never abundant. It arrives early in October, and may be seen in small flocks from that time to the third week in May. It sometimes frequents the apple-orchards, where it feeds on the Aphides. According to Dr. Coues, this species occasionally strays as far to the south as the Carolinas, but it is not common there.

Wilson observed these birds near Philadelphia, where they were feeding on the seeds of the alder. Later in the season they collected in larger flocks and took up their abode among the pine woods. In one particular locality, he states, a flock of two or three hundred of these birds regularly wintered, for many years in succession, where noble avenues of pines furnished them with abundant food throughout the season. Early in March they all disappeared. While there, they were so tame as to allow a person to approach within a few yards. They fluttered among the branches, frequently hanging from the cones, at the same time uttering notes closely resembling those of the Goldfinch.

In severe winters Mr. Audubon has met with the Pine Finch as far south as Henderson, Ky., and Charleston, S. C., but such visits were always brief. In August, 1832, he met with flocks of these birds in Labrador. They were in company with the Crossbill, and were feeding on the seeds of the fir-trees, and also on those of the thistle. When at the Magdalen Islands he frequently saw flocks moving from various directions. At Bras d’Or, towards the end of July, they were in great numbers, and the old birds were accompanied by their young. They frequented thickets of willows and elders in the vicinity of water, and were very fearless and gentle. According to his account they sing while on the wing, and their notes are sweet, varied, clear, and mellow, and, while somewhat resembling the song of the C. tristis, are perfectly distinct from it. Its flight is exactly similar, both gliding through the air in graceful and deep curves.

In Washington Territory Dr. Cooper found this Finch an abundant and constant resident, migrating to the coast in winter, where it feeds on the seeds of the alder. In summer they were gregarious, even when occupied with their nests and young. He has never met with any in California, not even in the Sierra Nevada, though they have been found by others along its whole western slope, as far south as Fort Tejon. They feed on the seeds of both coniferous and deciduous trees.

Early in May, 1859, a pair of these birds built their nest in the garden of Professor Benjamin Peirce, in Cambridge, Mass., near the colleges. It was found on the 9th by Mr. Frederick Ware, and already contained its full complement of four eggs, partly incubated. This nest was three inches in height and four in diameter. The depth of the cavity, as well as its diameter at the rim, was two inches. The base of this nest was a mass of loose materials, and the lower portions of the sides were hardly different. The upper and the inner portions of this fabric were much more compactly and neatly woven, or rather felted together. The outer layers consisted of small twigs of the Thuja, dried stems and ends of pine twigs, grasses, sedges, stalks of small vegetables, fine roots, bits of wool, and coarse hair. The whole was very closely lined with fine dry roots of herbaceous plants and the hair of small quadrupeds.

The eggs are of an oblong-oval shape, of a light green ground-color, spotted, chiefly at the larger end, with markings of a light rusty-brown. They measure .71 by .50 of an inch. They have a marked resemblance to the eggs of the Linariæ, but the ground-color is of a slightly lighter shade.

A nest of this species, found May 15, 1868, at Brunich, Canada, was composed almost entirely of pine twigs interlaced in a very neat and artistic manner. Its diameter was three and a half inches, and its height two inches. It was lined with hair. The cavity was one and a half inches deep and two inches wide.

GENUS LOXIA, LINNÆUS.

Loxia, Linnæus, Syst. Nat. ed. 10, 758. (Type, Loxia curvirostra, L.) Curvirostra, “SCOPOLI, 1777.” (Type, L. curvirostra.)

[Line drawing: Loxia americana. 5803 ♂]

GEN. CHAR. Mandibles much elongated, compressed and attenuated; greatly curved or falcate, the points crossing or overlapping to a greater or less degree. Tarsi very short; claws all very long, the lateral extending beyond the middle of the central; hind claw longer than its digit. Wings very long and pointed, reaching beyond the middle of the narrow, forked tail.

Colors reddish in the male.

The elongated, compressed, falcate-curved, and overlapping mandibles readily characterize this genus among birds. This feature, however, only belongs to grown specimens, the young having a straight bill, as in other Finches.

The United States species of Loxia are readily distinguished by the presence of white bands on the wing in leucoptera and their absence in americana. Neither form, however, is to be considered as specifically distinct from their European allies. The differences are as follows:—

Species and Varieties.

L. curvirostra. Wings dusky, without white bands.

1. Bill from forehead, .74; wing, 3.90; tail, 2.40. Lower mandible much weaker than the upper. Hab. Europe … var. curvirostra.[110]

2. Bill from forehead, .80 or more; wing, 4.00; tail, 2.50. Lower mandible as strong as the upper. Hab. Rocky Mountains of United States, and mountainous regions of Mexico … var. mexicana.

3. Bill from forehead, .60 or less; wing, 3.30; tail, 2.20. Hab. North America generally … var. americana.

L. leucoptera. Wings deep black, with two broad white bands.

1. Body and head pomegranate-red; black of scapulars nearly meeting across lower back. Hab. Northern North America; “Himalayas”; “Japan” … var. leucoptera.

2. Body, etc., cinnabar-red; back nearly wholly red. Hab. Europe … var. bifasciata.[111]

Loxia curvirostra var. americana, BAIRD.

RED CROSSBILL.

Curvirostra americana, WILS. Am. Orn. IV, 1811, 44, pl. xxxi, f. 1, 2.—BAIRD, Birds N. Am. 1858, 426.—COOPER & SUCKLEY, 198.—DALL & BANNISTER, Tr. Ch. Ac. I, 1869, 281 (Alaska).—COOPER, Orn. Cal. 1, 148.—SAMUELS, 291. Loxia americana, BON. List, 1838.—BON. & SCHLEGEL, Mon. Loxiens, 5, tab. vi.—NEWBERRY, Zoöl. California and Oregon Route, P. R. R. Rep. VI, IV, 1857, 87.—BON. & SCHLEGEL, Mon. Lox. 5, pl. vi. Loxia curvirostra, FORSTER, Phil. Trans. LXII, 1772, No. 23. AUD. Biog. II, 1834, 559; V, 511, pl. cxcvii.—IB. Birds Am. III, 1841, 186, pl. cc. “Loxia pusilla, ILLIGER” (Bp.). “Loxia fusca, VIEILLOT” (Bp.).

SP. CHAR. Old male dull red (the shade differing in the specimen, sometimes brick-red, sometimes vermilion, etc.); darkest across the back; wings and tail dark blackish-brown. Young male yellowish. Female dull greenish-olive above, each feather with a dusky centre; rump and crown bright greenish-yellow. Beneath grayish; tinged, especially on the sides of the body, with greenish-yellow. Young olive above; whitish beneath, conspicuously streaked above and below with blackish. Male about 6 inches; wing, 3.30; tail, 2.25.

HAB. Northern America generally, coming southward in winter. Resident in the Alleghany and Rocky Mountains.

There are considerable differences both in color and size, especially of bill, in specimens from various parts of North America, and to a less degree from the same locality. While those of the Atlantic and Pacific coast have bills of much the same size, in skins from the mountains of California this member is much stouter; in this character approaching the L. mexicana of Strickland, in which the bill presents its maximum of the North American form.

[Line drawing: California. ♂ 18034]

It would not probably be far out of the way to consider the European and all the American common Crossbills as the same species, differing only as races, and perhaps including L. himalayana, which is smaller even than americana.

We have not observed any American Crossbills with two reddish bands across the wing-coverts, corresponding to the variety rubrifasciata of Europe.

L. pytiopsittacus of Europe is much the largest of all the species, measuring seven inches in length, and with the bill seven lines high at base.

In the intensity, as well as the shade of the red in the males, there is a great range of variation. Generally it is of a tint almost precisely like that of L. curvirostra, though deeper. The most highly colored specimen is 54,795, Philadelphia (J. H. McIlvaine), which is entirely continuous deep tile-red, approaching vermilion on the rump. The abdomen and crissum are light pinkish. In No. 31,459, Fort Rae, April, the red is of a curious and very unusual purplish wine-red shade.

The average of western specimens, particularly those from the northwest coast of the United States, have bills scarcely larger than in the average of eastern examples; thus, 18,037, Fort Crook, N. Cal., has the bill of the same size as No. 5,803, Philadelphia, while No. 53,482, East Humboldt Mountains, has the bill smaller than any other in the collection.

In color, there are scarcely any tangible differences between the European Loxia curvirostra and the two American varieties, the distinctive character being in the form of the bill and the size; the C. mexicana is the largest of the three, and the bill is quite peculiar in form, the lower mandible almost equalling the upper in length, and exceeding it in thickness. L. curvirostra is slightly smaller, and has the lower mandible much smaller and less, powerful than the upper, being inferior to it both in length, breadth, and thickness. The colors also appear to be rather less intense than in C. mexicana.

The C. americana is in every way, the bill especially, smaller than either of the preceding. The lower mandible, although but slightly shorter than the upper, is still much weaker, as in the European bird. The majority of western birds have the bill but slightly larger than eastern, and most of those with large bills are only intermediate between americana and mexicana. In some specimens the bill, although almost equalling in length that of the latter, has yet the form of the former; on the other hand, there are specimens with the proportions of the mandibles as in mexicana, while the size is intermediate.

The following figures will illustrate the differences in the size of the bills of the different races.

Specimens from the Columbia River region and northwest coast of the United States appear to have the red more rosaceous and the bill more slender than the typical style. One specimen (No. 31,459, Fort Rae) is altogether a very peculiar one; the shade of red is different from that of any other specimen, being a dark maroon-carmine, with a clear ash suffusion on the back. There are two distinct dusky stripes on the cheek, one over the upper edge of the ear-coverts, the other along the lower edge. The lining of the wing is without any red tinge, seen in all specimens of the true americana and mexicana; the wings and tail are pure sepia-brown, quite different from the others; and the feathers show no red margins. The lower mandible is very much curved. (May not this be like some Siberian style?)

No 21,868, from Washington Territory, has the bill nearly as slender as in C. leucoptera, but there is nothing else peculiar.

HABITS. The common Red Crossbill of America is a bird of very irregular distribution, abundant in some places at certain seasons, and again rarely seen for several years. It is a Northern species, found in summer chiefly in the more northern portions of the United States, and also found throughout the year in the Alleghanies, in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, to Georgia. A closely allied variety is also found in the alpine regions of Vera Cruz and other departments of Mexico.

Dr. Suckley found this species quite abundant at Puget Sound, in certain seasons. This was especially so in the spring of 1854, though afterwards he met with but few. He noticed a pair on the ground near a pool of rain-water. They were very tame, and allowed a near approach. Dr. Cooper found it very abundant near the coast, where it feeds, in winter, on the seeds of the black spruce, retiring in summer to the mountains to breed, but returning in September. He never observed any in the fir forests of the Coast Range. In the Sierra Nevada, latitude 39°, Dr. Cooper found these birds in considerable numbers, September, 1863, and in winter they have been obtained about San Francisco. They seem to be most attracted to the forests of spruces, cypresses, and red-woods, the cones of which are most readily broken. They occasionally descend to the ground, in the Rocky Mountains, in search of the seeds of small plants, and also for water.

Mr. Bischoff obtained specimens of this species at Sitka, but it was not noticed in the territory of the Yukon River by Mr. Dall, or any of his party, and it was met with by Mr. Ridgway on the East Humboldt Mountains only. There they were occasionally seen among the willows and small aspens bordering the streams. Their common note was a fine and frequently repeated chick-chick-chick, very different from the plaintive notes of the C. leucoptera.

In New England they are of somewhat irregular occurrence, though in Maine and in the northern portions of Vermont and New Hampshire they are more or less resident. In Eastern Massachusetts they are comparatively rare, excepting that, at irregular intervals, they come in large flocks during the winter. This was so to a remarkable degree in the winter of 1832, and more recently in 1862, when, Mr. Maynard states, they remained until April. They were then in their summer plumage, and also in full song. In August 1868, they again became quite numerous, and had just before appeared in large numbers in Western Maine, doing great damage to the oats, and disappearing as soon as these had been harvested. Mr. Maynard thinks that these birds were the same with those afterwards so numerous in Massachusetts.

The same peculiarities of irregular appearance have been observed by Mr. Allen, in Springfield, where it is often a very abundant visitor, but generally not so common. In the winter of 1859-60 the pine woods in the vicinity of that city abounded with them, and in February they were already in full song. They are at all times gregarious, and are sometimes seen in large flocks.

They have, as they fly, a loud, peculiar, and not unmusical cry. This call-note they do not utter when at rest or when feeding. Their song in the spring and summer is varied and pleasing, but is not powerful, or in any respect remarkable. This song is especially noticeable in caged birds, who soon become very tame, and feed readily from the hand, even when taken at an adult age. Their manners in confinement are very like those of the Parrots, clinging to the top of the wires with their claws, hanging with their heads downward, and, when feeding, holding their food in one claw. On the trees, their habits and manner are also said to be similar to those of Parrots.

Mr. Audubon has found these birds, in August, in the pine woods of Pennsylvania, and inferred that they breed there. This does not necessarily follow. They breed so early at the north as to give ample time for their migrations, even in midsummer, to remote places. Professor Baird, however, informs me that during a summer spent in the mountains of Schuylkill County, Penn., in the coal region, he saw them nearly every day, moving about or feeding, in pairs.

The Crossbills are extremely gentle and social, are easily approached, caught in traps, and even knocked down with sticks. Their food is chiefly the seeds of the Coniferæ, and also those of plants. Audubon’s statement that they destroy apples merely to secure the seeds is hardly accurate. They are extravagantly fond of this fruit, and prefer the flesh to its seeds. Their flight is undulating, somewhat in the manner of the Goldfinch, firm, swift, and often protracted. As they fly, they always keep up the utterance of their loud, clear call-notes. They move readily on the ground, up or down the trunks and limbs of trees, and stand as readily with their heads downward as upright.

Wilson states that in the interior of Pennsylvania this species appears in large flocks in the winter, and during the prevalence of deep snows they keep about the doors of dwellings, pick off the clay with which these huts are plastered, and are exceedingly tame and not easily driven off.

So far as is known, these Crossbills breed in midwinter, or very early in the spring, when the weather is the most inclement. The nest and eggs of this species were procured by Mr. Charles S. Paine, in East Randolph, Vt., early in the month of March. The nest was built in an upper branch of an elm,—which, of course, was leafless,—the ground was covered with snow, and the weather severe. The birds were very tame and fearless, refusing to leave their eggs, and had to be several times taken off by the hand. After its nest had been taken, and as Mr. Paine was descending with it in his hand, the female again resumed her place upon it, to protect her eggs from the biting frost. The eggs were four in number, and measured .85 by .53 of an inch. They have a greenish-white ground and are beautifully blotched, marbled, and dotted with various shades of lilac and purplish-brown.

Loxia curvirostra, var. mexicana, STRICKLAND.

MEXICAN CROSSBILL.

Loxia mexicana, STRICKLAND, Jardine Contrib. Orn. 1851, 43.—SCLATER, P. Z. S. 1859, 365.—IB. 1864, 174, City of Mexico.—SALVIN, Ibis, 1866, 193 (Guatemala).

SP. CHAR. Colors of americana, but red brighter, more scarlet. Bill very large, the lower mandible nearly or quite equal to the upper in strength and length. Wing, 4.00; tail, 2.50; bill (from forehead) .82.

HAB. Mountainous regions of Southern North America, from Guatemala, north into Rocky Mountains of United States; Mexico, Orizaba.

This bird is quite as well marked as any of the plain-winged “species,” differing from curvirostra and americana quite as much as they do from each other.

All specimens from Mexico, as well as from the Central Rocky Mountains of the United States, are referrible to this form, though in winter the americana may also be found in the latter region, as a migrant from the north.

HABITS. The occurrence of this well-marked race among the mountainous districts of Mexico is a very interesting and suggestive fact in regard to the distribution of birds, demonstrating, as it does, the close connection between high latitudes and high elevations as favoring similar forms. It was first described by Strickland from specimens obtained on the plateau near the city of Mexico. Another specimen is referred to by Mr. Sclater as having been received from Jalapa, Mexico; and Mr. Sumichrast obtained also a single specimen of this species at Moyoapam, in the alpine region of Orizaba, where it is known as the Pico cruzado. It was taken at an elevation of about 7,500 feet. Mr. Sumichrast was unable to determine whether this bird was resident, or only a migratory visitant in the winter. I can find no reference to any distinctive peculiarities of habits.

Loxia leucoptera, GMELIN.

WHITE-WINGED CROSSBILL.

Loxia, leucoptera, GM. Syst. Nat. I, 1788, 540.—AUD. Orn. Biog. IV, 1838, 467, pl. ccclxiv.—IB. Birds Am. III, 1841, 190, pl. cci.—BON. & SCHL. Mon. Loxiens, 1850, 8, pl. ix.—GOULD, B. Gt. Britain, V, 1864 (killed England, Sept. 17). Curvirostra leucoptera, WILS. Am. Orn. IV, 1811, 48, pl. xxxi, f. 3.—BAIRD, Birds N. Am. 1858, 427.—DALL & BANNISTER, Tr. Ch. Ac. I, 1869, 281 (Alaska).—COOPER, Orn. Cal. 1, 149.—SAMUELS, 293. Crucirostra leucoptera, BREHM, Naumannia, I, 1853, 254, fig. 20. Loxia falcirostra, LATH. Index, Orn. I, 1790, 371.

SP. CHAR. Bill greatly compressed, and acute towards the point. Male carmine red, tinged with dusky across the back; the sides of body under the wings streaked with brown; from the middle of belly to the tail-coverts whitish, the latter streaked with brown. Scapulars, wings, and tail black; two broad bands on the wings across the ends of greater and median coverts; white spots on the end of the inner tertiaries. Female brownish, tinged with olive-green in places; feathers of the back and crown with dusky centres; rump bright brownish-yellow. Length about 6.25; wing, 3.50; tail, 2.60.

HAB. Northern parts of North America generally; Greenland (REINH. Ibis, III, 1861, 8); England, (September 17, GOULD, Birds Great Britain).

The white bands on the wings distinguish this species from the preceding, although there are some other differences in form of bill, feet, wing, etc. There is less variation in form and color among specimens than in the preceding. It differs from the European analogue, L. bifasciata, according to authors, in the more slender body and bill, and in having the body pomegranate-red, with blackish back, instead of cinnabar-red, as in curvirostra and americana, Bonaparte and Schlegel quote the American species as occurring in the Himalaya Mountains, and perhaps Japan, but throw doubts on the supposed European localities.

HABITS. Both the distribution and habits of this species are probably, in all essential respects, the same with those of the preceding. It is, if anything, a more northern bird, and it has not been detected anywhere on the Pacific coast south of British America. It was found in the Arctic regions by Sir John Richardson, where the other species was not observed. He found it inhabiting the dense white-spruce forests of the fur country, feeding principally on the seeds of their cones. Up to the sixty-eighth parallel he found them ranging through the whole breadth of the continent. It is supposed to go as far as these woods extend, though it has not been traced farther than the sixty-second degree. It was found feeding on the upper branches, clinging to them when wounded, and remaining suspended even after death. In September they collected in small flocks, and flew from tree to tree with a chattering noise. In the depth of winter they retire from the coast to the thick woods of the interior.

A few individuals of this species are recorded by Professor Reinhardt as having been taken in South Greenland.

In Pennsylvania this species is much more rare than the americana, and Wilson only met with a few specimens. Since his day it has been found more abundantly, occasionally in the neighborhood of Philadelphia.

Mr. Dall states that these birds were not uncommon near Nulato in the winter. Several specimens were obtained in February and April. None were found there in the summer. He speaks of their great expertness in opening the spruce cones with their curved bills, and extracting the seeds.

Its appearance in Eastern Massachusetts is much more irregular both as to numbers and time than that of the other species. In the fall and winter of 1868 and 1869 they were uncommonly abundant, appearing early in the fall, and remaining until quite late in the spring. They were even more fearless and tame than the americana, and in one instance a pair were taken by the hand, and afterwards kept in confinement. They appeared around Boston in large flocks, and remained through April. One was shot in Newton by Mr. Maynard, June 13. It was found in an apple-tree, and its crop was full of canker-worms. In Eastern Maine it is resident throughout the year, and, like the other species, breeds in winter. In Western Maine Professor Verrill has found it a common winter visitant, but it is not known to be resident.

Near Springfield Mr. Allen considered this species a much less frequent visitor than the preceding. In the winters of 1854 and 1860 he found them very abundant, occurring in large flocks.

Mr. Audubon, on his way to Labrador in 1833, found these birds quite common, in May, among the islands of the Bay of Fundy, evidently migrating, on their way to more northern regions. I, however, observed none there during my visits in the summers of 1850 and 1851, although a specimen was afterwards obtained on the Murre Islands, on the 30th of June.

So far as they are known, the habits of this species are exactly similar to those of the preceding. They feed in the same manner and upon like food. Their flight is undulating and well sustained, and their movements in the trees are not perceptibly different.

In the spring of 1869, Mr. Jillson, of Hudson, Mass., sent me a pair of these birds which he had captured the preceding autumn. They were very tame, and were exceedingly interesting little pets. Their movements in the cage were like those of caged parrots in every respect, except that they were far more easy and rapid. They clung to the sides and upper wires of the cage with their feet, hung down from them, and seemed to enjoy the practice of walking with their head downward. They were in full song, and both the male and the female were quite good singers. Their songs were irregular and varied, but sweet and musical. They ate almost every kind of food, but were especially eager for slices of raw apples. An occasional larch cone was also a great treat to them. Although while they lived they were continually bickering over their food, yet when the female was accidentally choked by a bit of eggshell her mate was inconsolable, ceased to sing, refused his food, and died of grief in a very few days.

The White-winged Crossbill was seen more frequently by Mr. Ridgway among the East Humboldt Mountains than the other species. It was first noticed on the 12th of August among the cedars on the mountains. Its fine plaintive cry of “wēēk” was entirely different from the hurriedly uttered notes of the C. americana.

Several specimens of this Crossbill have been taken in Europe, where their occurrence is of course accidental, irregular, and rare.

A nest of this species (S. I., 13,452), taken at Fredericton, New Brunswick, by Dr. A. Adams, in 1868, is deeply saucer-shaped, and composed of a rather thin wall of fibrous pale-green lichens, encased on the outside with spruce twigs, and thinly lined with coarse hairs and fine shreds of inner bark. Its external diameter is a little less than four inches, the rim being almost perfectly circular; the cavity is an inch and a half deep by two and a half broad.

The one egg is pale blue, the large end rather thickly spattered with fine dots of black and ashy-lilac; is regularly or rather slightly elongate-oval, the small end rather obtuse. It measures .80 of an inch in length by .56 in breadth.

GENUS ÆGIOTHUS, CABAN.

Acanthis, BONAP. Conspectus, 1850, not of Bechstein, 1802, nor of Keys. & Blas. 1840. Ægiothus, CABANIS, Mus. Hein. 1851, 161. (Type, Fringilla linaria, LINN.)—COUES, Pr. Acad. Nat. Sc. Phil. 1861, 373; 1863, 40; 1869, 180.

[Line drawing: Ægiothus linarius. 39364 ♂]

SP. CHAR. Bill very short, conical, acutely pointed, the outlines sometimes concave; the commissure straight; the base of the upper mandible and the nostrils concealed by stiff, appressed bristly feathers; middle of the mandible having several ridges parallel with the culmen. Inner lateral toe rather the longer, its claw reaching the middle of the middle claw; the hind toe rather longer, its claw longer than the digital portion. Wings very long, reaching the middle of the tail; second quill a little longer than the first and third. Tail deeply forked.

Difficult as it sometimes is to define with precision the characters of closely allied species of birds, there are few genera where this is the case more strikingly than in Ægiothus. Leaving out of view the peculiar European species, it has been a mooted question whether North America, including Greenland, possesses one, two, or six species, owing to the strictly boreal distribution of these birds, and the fact that their summer resorts are seldom invaded by the naturalist. The necessary means of determining the proper distribution of the forms and the variations with season, locality, and sex, are scarcely to be met with in any public museum, that of the Smithsonian Institution, however, being the most complete in this respect.

To Dr. Coues, as quoted above, we owe the most satisfactory indications of the different species and varieties, his papers in the Proceedings of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences (1861, 375; 1863, 40; and 1869, 180) being models of ornithological criticism and discussion. His labors have enabled us to define with precision the various forms, both European and American, found in the genus, and have brought us to satisfactory conclusions in reference to their limitations.

Mr. Ridgway has lately made a careful revision of the specimens of Ægiothus in the Smithsonian collection, and with a general concurrence in the conclusions of Dr. Coues in regard to the differences observable, he suggests, as an application of the laws more recently verified by him and myself in our examination of the North American land-birds, that we may best consider the actual species to be two in number, namely, canescens and linarius, ranging the other forms under these, either as geographical races or as seasonal stages. Bearing in mind the general law that the more boreal or Greenland-born specimens should be larger than the more southern or Continental, and that the peculiar dark plumage of fuscescens and rostratus only occurs in summer breeding specimens, he considers these as identical with linarius and holbölli; the winter plumages respectively of the same two races of one species, linarius; the latter race, holbölli, being the larger or Greenland form. If fuscescens be darker than summer linarius from Europe, it is simply another instance of the darker tints of Arctic American birds as compared with European.

Ægiothus canescens and exilipes Mr. Ridgway considers as the Greenland (larger) and Continental (smaller) races of one species, which perhaps do not differ so much with season as do those of linarius. The differences in the size and proportions of bill, and perhaps of feet, Mr. Ridgway does not think of much importance, as great variations are observable in this respect in specimens from the same locality, and the actual differences of the bill are obscured by the greater length of the bristly feathers around its base in winter, making it appear considerably shorter. Indeed, Professor Alfred Newton maintains that the same bird will have the bill considerably longer in summer, after living on soft insect food, and shorter in winter when worn down by use on hard seeds. Mr. Ridgway finds, too, that specimens of linarius from Kodiak differ in a much longer and more slender bill than usual, in this respect resembling Alaska specimens of several other Fringillidæ.

The following synopsis expresses Mr. Ridgway’s views as indicated above: a critical examination of a series of more than two hundred specimens, in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution, being the basis of his conclusions.—S. F. B.

Species and Varieties.

COMMON CHARACTERS. Adult. Above streaked with dusky upon a brownish, or brown and whitish, ground; wing-coverts tipped with whitish or pale brown. Beneath whitish, streaked on the sides with dusky. An indistinct, lighter superciliary stripe. Male. Rump tinged with rose-pink. Female. Rump not tinged with pinkish. Juv. Without any red, and with the whole lower parts thickly streaked.

A. Crown with a quadrate patch of crimson, in adult; throat and chin with a dusky spot; quills and tail-feathers not edged conspicuously with white. ♂ with the breast tinged with red.

1. A. canescens. Rump unstreaked white (both sexes, at all seasons); the lower tail-coverts with white shafts; the red tinge on the breast in the ♂, of a delicate pale rosaceous pink tint.

Bill very short and thick, its height through the base nearly equalling the length of the culmen. Wing, 3.20; tail, 2.65. Bill: culmen, .35; height, .30. Hab. Greenland … var. canescens.

Bill much smaller, more acute, its height through the base much less than the length of the culmen. Wing, 3.00; tail, 2.50. Bill: culmen, .30; height, .22. Hab. Continental arctic America … var. exilipes.

2. A. linarius. Rump always streaked; lower tail-coverts with dusky shaft-streaks; the red tinge on the breast of the ♂ of a rosaceous-carmine tint.

Bill about .35 in length by .22 in height; wing, 2.80; tail, 2.40. Hab. Continental arctic and cold temperate North America … var. linarius.

Bill about .40, or more, in length, by .30 in height; wing, 3.20; tail, 2.60. Hab. Greenland in summer, and Continental arctic and cold temperate North America in winter … var. holbölli.

B. Crown without any red; throat and chin without any dusky spot; quills and tail-feathers of adult male edged conspicuously with white. ♂ without red tinge on the breast.

3. A. flavirostris. Rump rose-pink in the ♂, brown streaked with dusky in ♀. No red on crown or breast.

♀. Above umber-brown streaked with dusky; ground-color of rump light brown; throat and jugulum strongly ochraceous-buff. Hab. Europe … var. flavirostris.

♀. Above olive-brown streaked with dusky; ground-color of rump sulphur-yellow; throat and jugulum faintly sulphur-yellow, tinged with buff. Hab. North America … var. brewsteri.

Ægiothus linarius, CABANIS.

LESSER RED-POLL.

Fringilla linaria, LINN. Syst. Nat. I, 1766, 322.—AUD. Orn. Biog. IV, 1838, 538, pl. ccclxxv. Fringilla (Acanthis) linaria, KEYS. & BLAS. Wirb. Europ. 1840, No. 115, page 161.—Acanthis linaria, BP. Conspectus, 1850, 541. Ægiothus linaria, CABANIS, Mus. Hein. 1851, 161.—BAIRD, Birds N. Am. 1858, 428.—COUES, Pr. A. N. S. Nov. 1861, 382.—COOPER & SUCKLEY, 198.—SAMUELS, 294.—MAYNARD, B. E. Mass. 1870, 110.—DALL & BANNISTER, Tr. Chic. Acad. I, 1869, 281.—COOPER, Orn. Cal. 1, 159. Linaria minor, SW. F. Bor. Am. II, 1831, 267.—AUD. Syn. 1839, 114.—IB. Birds Am. III, 1841, 122, pl. clxxix. ? Linaria holbölli, BREHM, Vögel Deutschlands. Acanthis holbölli, BP. & SCHLEGEL, Mon. Loxiens, 1850, 50, pl. liii. Ægiothus holbölli, COUES, Pr. A. N. Sc. 1861, 385. Linaria americana, MAX. Cab. Journ. VI, 1858, 338. Ægiothus fuscescens, COUES, P. A. N. S. Aug. 1861, 222 (Labrador; breeding dress).—IB. p. 380. Ægiothus rostratus, ELLIOT, Illust. B. Am. I, pl. ix.—COUES, P. A. N. S. Nov. 1861, 378 (Greenland).—ELLIOT, Illust. Birds N. A. I, pl. x.

I. Spring and Winter Plumage.

SP. CHAR. Adult. Ground-color of the occiput, nape, scapulars, and interscapulars, brownish-white, each feather with medial streak of dusky-brown; rump and upper tail-coverts white, with the streaks in sharper contrast. Wings clear brownish-dusky with two conspicuous white bands, formed by tips of middle and secondary coverts; tertials broadly, and secondaries narrowly, edged with white; tail-feathers narrowly edged with white, this broader on inner webs. A narrow frontal band (tinged with brownish), an obscure superciliary stripe, and the lower parts in general, white; sides streaked with dusky, and lower tail-coverts each with a medial streak of the same. On the forehead and vertex a somewhat quadrate patch of intense carmine. Nasal plumuli, lores, and a small, somewhat quadrate, gular spot, dark silky-brown. Bill yellow, the culmen and gonys black.

♂. Throat, jugulum, and breast, rosaceous-carmine (extending upward over the maxillæ, and backward over the sides almost to the flanks); rump tinged with the same.

Var. linarius (21,577, Philadelphia). Wing, 2.80; tail, 2.35; bill, .35 and .22; tarsus, .55; middle toe, .30.

Var. holbölli (39,263, Quebec). Wing, 3.00; tail, 2.40; bill, .42 and .29; tarsus, .60; middle toe, .37.

Var. holbölli? (52,457, Kodiak). Wing, 3.00; tail, 2.40; bill, .47 and .25; tarsus, .55; middle toe, .35.

♀. No red except on the crown, where its tint is less intense; dusky gular spot larger, extending farther on to the throat.

Var. linarius (902, Penn.). Wing, 2.70; tail, 2.30; bill, .32 and .23; tarsus, .55; middle toe, .32.

Var. holbölli (39,362, Quebec). Wing, 3.10; tail, 2.50; bill, .42 and .29; tarsus, .61; middle toe, .39.

Var holbölli? (52,460, Kodiak). Wing, 2.80; tail, 2.30; bill .39 and .23;. tarsus, .54; middle toe, .32.

II. Summer or Breeding Plumage.

The pattern the same as above, but the dark tint intensified and spread so as to almost entirely obliterate any lighter markings, except the streaks on the rump; the wing-bands as well as the dorsal streaks obsolete; streaks on the sides broader; frontal band dusky like the occiput. Red tints slightly intensified. Bill wholly dusky.

♂. Throat, jugulum, breast, and tinge on sides and rump, rosy-carmine.

Var. linarius (type of “fuscescens”). Wing, 2.80; tail, 2.30; bill, .36 and .25; tarsus, .53; middle toe, .33.

Var. holbölli (type of “rostratus”). Wing, 3.00; tail, 2.35; bill, .41 and .30; tarsus, .60; middle toe, .40.

Var. holbölli? (54,477, Kodiak, July). Wing, 2.90; tail, 2.20; bill, .40 and .25; tarsus, .56; middle toe, .32.

♀. No red except on the crown.

Var. linarius (♀ type of “fuscescens”). Wing, 2.80; tail, 2.30; bill, .35 and .25; tarsus, .52; middle toe, .34.

Young (first plumage). (54,478, Kodiak, July.) Streaks covering whole head, neck, and breast; no red (RIDGWAY).

HAB. Circumpolar regions. In North America breeding in the sub-arctic regions, and in winter descending into the northern United States.

The two races of Æ. linarius are quite differently colored in summer and in winter. In the latter season the plumage is softer and more lax, and the markings better defined, though in autumn with a considerable ochraceous suffusion. In spring the colors are purer, and the markings most sharply defined; in the breeding-season the plumage assumes a burnt appearance, the dark tints intensify and spread, so that sometimes the upper parts appear almost uniformly dusky; the bill appears larger, in consequence of the less development of its basal tufts, than in winter. In this dusky summer condition these birds form the Æ. fuscescens and Æ. rostratus of Coues, the latter being the summer plumage of var. holbölli, the former that of var. linarius. In the series of over two hundred examples examined, all midsummer specimens are in the plumage of fuscescens or rostratus, while the latter is not seen in any autumnal, winter, or spring birds.

Specimens of the var. holbölli have been received from Quebec, collected by Mr. W. Couper.

HABITS. Accepting as variations due either to locality, latitude, or season the differences already referred to in the plumage of this species, it is not necessary to consider the question of races in connection with our story of their habits. We possess but very little information as to their peculiarities as races in these respects. Treating, then, the Lesser Red-Poll, though appearing in four differing phases, as one species, we claim it to be common to the northern portions of both hemispheres.

It is found throughout northern North America from the Atlantic to the Pacific, is abundant in the boreal regions of Europe, and probably of Asia also. On the Pacific coast, Dr. Cooper has observed it only as far south as Washington Territory. Farther north it is much more abundant. Mr. Bannister found it common at St. Michaels, both in summer and in winter. At Nulato Mr. Dall found this species very common in winter, and very little less so in summer. He states that the nest is usually lined with hair, and covered externally with moss, dry grass, and like materials, built in bushes, near the ground. They begin to build the 15th of May. The eggs are laid about the 1st of June, and the young are flying near the end of July. The young of the first year are dark, with a small patch of brown on the breast. After their second year the males increase the amount of rose-color on the head and breast, and the very old birds are quite brilliant in the breeding-season. At St. Michaels, where there are no trees and very few bushes; these birds frequently build their nests in the grass.

Mr. Dall states that this bird has no song, but that their cheerful twittering and chirping, their fearless and sociable ways, their bright plumage and elegant nests, are quite enough to make them general favorites.

Richardson found this neat and hardy little bird one of the few permanent residents of the fur countries, where it was seen, in the coldest weather, on the banks of lakes and rivers, hopping among the reeds or clinging to their stalks.

Mr. Lord found this species a rare bird in British Columbia. It was found in swampy places, where the alders grew thickly, and where there were large water-plants. To these it clings, pecking at their seed-pods, or, searching the remaining flowers, feeds upon any insects they may contain. Their song he describes as a soft and pretty warble, coming in bursts, the singer perching himself boldly on the top of a plant, as if to be more plainly heard by his companions. In early spring they feed on the catkins of the alder and hazel. They winter in small flocks in Vancouver’s Island.

Holböll states that this species is found irregularly distributed over Greenland, coming always in the first half of April, a little later than the Snow-Bunting. It migrates to Greenland from America, and is much rarer in Iceland. In June it is found nesting near the shore, and, contrary to the usual nature of birds, is very wild, though at all times else it is very fearless. At this time the male loses its beautiful crimson breast, resembles the female, and is much less gorgeous than in winter. It nests in birches, alders, or willows, and lays five bluish-white eggs, spotted with clear brown. Towards the end of August and in September they are seen in small flocks about the settlements, the male resuming its red breast, and all, both old and young, being very fearless. In confinement they soon became very tame, and in a few days would perch upon his hand and struggle with each other for the hemp-seed that he held to them, though there was plenty of food in their cage. They feed on seeds and the tops of lichens. By October they all disappear, and are not seen in Greenland in the winter.

Wilson states that, in his day, these birds were very common in Northwestern New York, where they appeared always with the first deep snow, and were, on that account, called Snow-Birds. In severe winters they were occasionally, though very rarely, seen in the neighborhood of Philadelphia, where they were very fond of the seeds of the common alder, and hung head downwards while feeding, in the manner of our Goldfinch. They were very unsuspicious, and permitted a near approach without manifesting any signs of alarm. Mr. Ord, in a subsequent edition of Wilson, states that these birds rarely visit Philadelphia, and that it was many years before he could procure specimens. In the winter of 1813-14 they appeared in a flock of nearly a hundred, and were so intent in feeding upon the seeds of the Atriplex hastata that they could be closely approached. Their call exactly resembled that of the Goldfinch. These birds lingered in that neighborhood until about the middle of April.

Their migration southward in winter is evidently caused more by want of food than by the state of the temperature. They remain in high northern regions in the most inclement weather, and often appear among us in seasons not remarkably cold, and remain until late in the spring. In 1833, by the 7th of November, the weather still being quite mild, Nuttall states, they appeared in Massachusetts in considerable flocks. They regularly assembled in the birch-trees every morning to feed on the seeds, and were so intent on their employment that it was often possible to approach the slender trees on which they were feeding, and strike them off, before they would take wing. They hung on the twigs with great tenacity, and moved about in reversed positions, in the manner of the Chickadees. They are described by him as having a quailing call, similar to that of the Goldfinch, and when crowding together, in flight, as making a confused chirping, with a rattling noise, and moving off with a simultaneous twitter. They were attracted to the pines by the Crossbills, and were busily employed in collecting the seeds, dropped from the cones as the Crossbills opened them. They at times fed on the buds of fruit-trees. They were always found to be fat, even on their first arrival, and there were no obvious reasons for their movements.

Mr. Boardman speaks of them as common at Calais by the first of the winter. At Norway, Me., Professor Verrill found them very common in fall, winter, and spring, and most abundant in March and April. In Springfield they are, according to Mr. Allen, an irregular and occasional visitant, coming in very large flocks one year, and again not seen for several years. In a more recent paper (1870) Mr. Allen states that during the preceding five years these birds have been several times very numerous in Massachusetts, appearing in quite large flocks.

Mr. Audubon met with these birds in Labrador the last of July, and obtained specimens of different ages. He thinks their notes more like those of the Siskin of Europe than of our Goldfinch, uttered both when the birds are on the wing and when they have alighted. They were in small parties of seven or eight, evidently members of the same family. They were tame and familiar, and fearlessly returned to the same spot after having been shot at. They were also remarkably affectionate, and he frequently observed them passing seeds one to the other in the most loving manner.

Dr. Coues also observed this bird in Labrador, and described it as Æ. fuscescens. He found it abundant along the coast, and was struck with its resemblance, in habits, to the Chrysomitris tristis. It was remarkably unsuspicious and familiar, and showed no signs of fear even when very closely approached. It frequented, almost exclusively, the scrubby junipers that grow everywhere in open places in thick impenetrable patches. He describes its flight as irregular, rising and falling in curves, and seldom protracted to any great distance. While passing overhead, it uttered a peculiar rattling chirp. He thinks it has no song.

Dr. Kirtland informs me that early in the winter of 1868 his grandson picked up a wing-broken male Red-Poll, and placed it in his greenhouse. It began at once to feed on crumbs of bread and hay-seed, and rapidly recovered. It soon acquired the habit of leaping from shelf to shelf, among the plants, and was finally seen climbing up some stately Pelargonium shrubs, and suspending itself, parrot-like, by its feet from the limbs, capturing aphides. From that time it took no other food, living exclusively on the parasitic insects of the plants. So active was it in capturing these, that for two months it was not necessary to fumigate the greenhouse to destroy them. From day to day a female Red-Poll hovered over the building, and her calls were responded to by the invalid. Later in the season he escaped from his confinement, and was seen to rejoin his faithful mate, which had remained near him all the winter. As in Europe, this species in the Arctic regions of America has been found nesting in low trees and bushes, from two to six feet from the ground.

The habits and appearance of the birds observed in Europe appear identical with those of our own. Mr. Yarrell states that of all birds these are the most easily tamed, and can be readily made to breed in confinement. In Scotland and in parts of England it is resident throughout the year, in the summer retiring to the bases of the mountains, and there breeding in the underwood that skirts the banks of the mountain streams. It nests in bushes or low trees, such as the alder and the willow. These are constructed of mosses and the stems of dry grasses, intermingled with down from the catkins of the willow, and lined with the same, making them soft and warm. The young are produced late in the season, and are seldom able to fly before the first of July. The parent birds are devoted in their attachment. Pennant relates that in one instance where this bird was sitting on four eggs, she was so tenacious of her nest as to suffer him to take her off with his hand, and after having been released she still refused to leave it. In the winter they descend to the lower grounds, and there feed on the buds of the birch and alder, to reach which they are obliged, like the Titmice, to hang from the ends of the branches, with their backs downward. So intent are they on their work that they are easily taken alive by means of a long stick smeared with birdlime. Mr. Selby states that its notes during the breeding-season, though not delivered in a continuous song, are sweet and pleasing. Captain Scoresby relates that in his approach to Spitsbergen several of these birds alighted on his ship. They were so wearied with their long journey as to be easily caught by the hand. The distance of the nearest point of Norway renders it difficult to imagine how so delicate a bird can perform this journey, or why it should seek such a cold and barren country. European eggs are five in number, of a pale bluish-green, spotted with orange-brown, principally about the larger end. They measure .65 by .50 of an inch.

American eggs of this species average .65 by .53 of an inch. Their color is a light bluish-white, which varies considerably in the depth of its shading, and this tinge is exceedingly fugitive, it being difficult to preserve it even in a cabinet. The eggs are generally and finely dotted with a rusty-brown, and are of a rather rounded oval shape.

Ægiothus canescens, CABANIS.

MEALY RED-POLL.

Linaria canescens, GOULD, “Birds Europe, pl. cxciii.” _Linota canescens_, BONAP. List, 1838. Acanthis canescens, BON. Conspectus, 1850, 541.—BON. & SCHLEGEL, Mon. Loxiens, 1850, 47, tab. li.—ROSS, Ed. Phil. Jour. 1861, 163. Ægiothus canescens, CABANIS, Mus. Hein. 1851, 161.—BAIRD, Birds N. Am. 1858, 429.—COUES, P. A. N. S. 1861, 388.—SAMUELS, 295. “_Fringilla borealis_, TEMMINCK, 1835. Not of Vieillot.” Bonaparte. _? Fringilla borealis_, AUD. Orn. Biog. V, 1839, 87, pl. cccc. _? Linaria borealis_, AUD. Birds Am. III, 1841, 120, pl. clxxviii. “Linaria hornemanni, HOLBÖLL, Kroyer Nat. Tidskr. 1843.” Ægiothus exilipes, COUES, Pr. A. N. Sc. Nov. 1861, 385.—ELLIOT, Illust. N. Am. Birds, I, pl. ix.

SP. CHAR. Autumnal female. Greenland race (canescens). (23,377, Greenland, Univ. Zoöl. Mus. Copenhagen.) In general appearance like the corresponding plumage of Æ. linarius, but the whole rump immaculate white; frontal band more than twice as wide as in linarius, and better defined; lower tail-coverts without streaks, their shafts even being white. Carmine vertical patch only a little wider than the whitish frontal patch; head with a strong ochraceous suffusion. Wing, 3.30; tail, 2.90; bill, .35 and .30; tarsus, .60; middle toe, .32. Wing-formula, 1, 2, and 3.

HAB. Greenland. Variations with season probably as in smaller Continental race.

Adult of both sexes in spring. Continental race (exilipes). As described for the Greenland form, but without the ochraceous suffusion. Sides very sparsely streaked.

Male in spring. Breast only tinged with delicate peach-blossom-pink, this extending farther back medially than laterally,—just the reverse of Æ. linarius; a very faint tinge of the same in the white of the rump. Measurements (No. 19,686, Fort Simpson, April 30, 1860; B. R. ROSS, COUES’S type): Wing, 3.00; tail, 2.55; bill, .29 and .25; tarsus, .52; middle toe, .30; wing-formula, 2, 1, 3, 4.

Female in spring. Similar, but lacking all red except that of the pileum, which is less intense, though not more restricted, than in the male. Measurements (No. 19,700, Fort Simpson, April 28; B. R. ROSS): Wing, 2.80; tail, 2.35; bill, .25 and .22; tarsus, .51; middle toe, .30.

Both sexes in autumn. (♀, Fort Rae.) The white of the whole plumage, except on the rump, overspread by a wash of pale ochraceous, this deepest anteriorly; on the anterior upper parts a deep tint of ochraceous entirely replacing the white; wing-markings broader and more ochraceous than in the spring plumage. Wing, 2.85; tail, 2.50; bill, .30 and .25; tarsus, .51; middle toe, .30.

HAB. Continental arctic America. In winter south into the United States (as far as Mount Carroll, Illinois).

Though Æ. canescens is nearly identical with Æ. linarius in size, these two species may always be distinguished from each other by certain well-marked and constant differences in coloration; the principal of these have been mentioned in the synoptical table, but a few other points may be noted here. In spring males of canescens the delicate rosaceous-pink of the breast does not extend up on to the cheeks, and backward it extends farther medially than laterally, scarcely tingeing the sides at all; while in Æ. linarius the intensely rosaceous, almost carmine, tint covers the cheeks, and extends backward much farther laterally than medially, covering nearly the whole sides.

Though the weakness, or shortness, of the toes compared with the tarsus, is a feature distinguishing, upon almost microscopical comparison, the Æ. canescens in its two races from the races of Æ. linarius, it will not by any means serve to distinguish canescens and exilipes, since, as will be seen by the measurements given, the proportion of the toes to the tarsus is a specific, and not a race, character. (RIDGWAY.)

HABITS. The history of the Mealy Red-Poll can only be presented with some doubts and uncertainties. We cannot always determine how far the accounts given by others may have belonged to this species, and we can only accept, with some reserve, their statements.

This form, whether species or race, is known to inhabit Greenland, where, according to Dr. Reinhardt, it is constantly resident, and I have received its eggs from that country, where its identification was apparently complete. Whether this bird is resident in, regularly migratory to, or only accidental in, Europe, is as yet a question by no means fully settled. Degland gives it as resident in Greenland only, and as accidental in Germany, Belgium, and the north of France. He states that it is known to nest in shrubs and in low trees, and that, in all essential respects, its manners are identical with the common Red-Poll. One of these birds was taken alive in a snare in the vicinity of Abbeville, and kept in a cage, making part of the collection of M. Baillon.

Yarrell thought that sufficient evidence existed of its specific distinctness, but Mr. Gould regarded it as a matter of doubt whether the birds found in Europe were natives, or only arrivals from northern America. He states that among the London dealers this bird, called by them the Stone Red-Poll, is well known, and is considered distinct, but that its occurrence is very rare. Occasionally, at great intervals, they are said to have been abundant.

Mr. Doubleday, of Epping, procured several specimens of this bird in Colchester, in January, 1836, and afterwards obtained a living pair, which he kept for some time. Their notes were much sharper than those of the linarius. Its occurrence was most frequent in winter, many specimens having been obtained in England, and some also in Scotland. Its habits throughout the year are supposed to be very similar to those of the common Red-Poll. Its food is said to be chiefly the seeds of various forest trees.

Mr. Temminck describes what is undoubtedly this species, under the title of borealis. If this supposition be admitted to be correct, its geographical distribution becomes much more clearly defined. He states that it is found during the summer in Norway and Sweden, and is resident of the Arctic Circle throughout the year, and is also found in Northern Asia, as well as in America and in other parts of Europe. He has received specimens from Greenland, and also from Japan, differing in no respect from those found in Europe.

Audubon states that he procured four specimens of this bird in Newfoundland. In their habits he could see no difference between them and the common Red-Poll, but did observe a noticeable difference in their song. He also states that one was shot by Mr. Edward Harris near Moorestown, N. J.

Mr. John Wolley, in his expeditions to Lapland, found there only one species of this genus which was clearly referrible to the Mealy Red-Poll, and was a common resident bird. One of these eggs from Lapland is larger, and a much lighter-colored egg, than any of the common linarius. The ground is a greenish-white, sparingly spotted with dark reddish-brown about the larger end. Its measurement is .80 by .58 of an inch. An egg from Greenland is not perceptibly different in size, color, or markings.

Holböll, in his papers on the fauna of Greenland, demonstrates very distinctly the specific differences between this bird and the linarius. These are its stronger and broader bill, the difference in colors at every age, its much greater size, its very different notes, and its quite different modes of life, the canescens being a strictly resident species, and the linarius being migratory.

In the summer this species is found to the extreme north of Greenland, and has never been known to nest farther south than the 69th parallel. It is more numerous in North Greenland than the linarius, which is rare at the extreme north, while this is very common even at latitude 73°. This bird builds its nests in bushes in the same manner with linarius, and its eggs closely resemble those of that bird. Its notes, he adds, do not at all resemble those of the Red-Poll, but are like those of the Ampelis garrulus.

It is a resident of Greenland throughout the year, and in the winter keeps on the mountains in the interior, but is much more numerous at latitude 66° than farther south. In February, 1826, Holböll saw many flocks on the mountains between Ritenbank and Omanak, and in the journey taken in 1830 by a merchant from Holsteinborg into the interior of the country a great many flocks were observed. They are also frequently met with by reindeer-hunters, who go far into the interior. It is rarely found in South Greenland at any time, and never in the summer. In mild winters they sometimes come about the settlements, as happened in the winter of 1828-29, and again in 1837-38. In the intervening winters it was not seen at Godhaab, and in severe winters it is never to be found near the coast, only single specimens occurring there in spring and autumn.

Mr. MacFarlane thinks this species spends the winter at Fort Anderson, as he has met with it as late as December and as early as February, and believes it to have been present in the vicinity in the interval. It nests in May. Mr. Harriott found one of its nests on the branch of a tree, about five feet from the ground. It contained five eggs.

The egg of this species resembles that of the linarius except in size and its lighter ground-color. The ground is a bluish or greenish white, dotted with a tawny-brown. The egg is of a more oval shape, and measures .75 by .60 of an inch.

Ægiothus flavirostris,[112] var. brewsteri, RIDGWAY.

BREWSTER’S LINNET.

SP. CHAR. General appearance somewhat that of Æ. linarius, but no red on the crown, and the sides and rump tinged with sulphur-yellow; no black gular spot. ♀ ad. Ground-color above light umber, becoming sulphur-yellow on the rump, each feather, even on the crown, with a distinct medial streak of dusky. Beneath white, tinged with fulvous-yellow anteriorly and along the sides; sides and crissum streaked with dusky. Wings and tail dusky; the former with two pale fulvous bands; the secondaries, primaries, and tail-feathers narrowly skirted with whitish sulphur-yellow. A dusky loral spot, and a rather distinct lighter superciliary stripe. Wing, 3.00; tail, 2.50; tarsus, .50; middle toe, .30. Wing-formula, 1, 2, 3, etc.

HAB. Massachusetts.

As the present article on Ægiothus is going to press, we have received, through the kindness of Dr. Brewer, a specimen of what appears to be a third species of Ægiothus, allied to the Æ. flavirostris of Europe, obtained in Waltham, Mass., by Mr. William Brewster, of Cambridge. This bird was killed in a flock of Æ. linarius, of which five were also shot at the same discharge. None of the others, nor indeed of any of ninety specimens prepared by Mr. Brewster during the winter, were at all like the present one, which is entirely different from anything we have ever seen from North America.

The relationship of this bird appears to be nearest to the Æ. flavirostris of Europe, with the ♀ of which it agrees in many respects, as distinguished from linarius and canescens. The European bird, however, lacks the sulphur-yellow tinge (which gives it somewhat the appearance of Chrysomitris pinus), has the throat and jugulum strongly reddish-buff, instead of dingy yellowish-white, and is much browner above; besides which the tail is longer and less deeply forked, with narrower feathers.

HABITS. Nothing distinctive was observed by Mr. Brewster in regard to the habits of the specimen killed by him.

GENUS LEUCOSTICTE, SWAINSON.

Leucosticte, SWAINSON, Fauna Bor. Am. II, 1831, 265. (Type, Linaria tephrocotis, SW.)

[Line drawing: Leucosticte tephrocotis. 19255 ♂]

GEN. CHAR. Bill conical, rounded, rather blunt at the tip; the culmen slightly convex; the commissure slightly concave; the nostrils and base of commissure concealed by depressed bristly feathers; a depressed ridge extending about parallel with the culmen above the middle of the bill. Another more conspicuously angulated one extending forward from the lower posterior angle of the side of the lower mandible, nearly parallel with the gonys. Tarsus about equal to the middle toe and claw. Inner toe almost the longer, its claw not reaching beyond the base of the middle one. Hind toe rather longer, its claw longer than the digital portion. Wings very long; first quill longest; all the primaries longer than the secondaries. Tail forked.

This genus differs from Ægiothus in the more obtuse and curved bill, the less development of bristly feathers at the base, the ridge on the lower mandible, the lateral toe not reaching beyond the base of the middle one, and possibly a longer hind toe. Its relationship to the other allies will be found expressed in the synoptical table of Coccothraustinæ.

The number of American species, or at least races, of this genus has been increased considerably since the publication of Birds of North America, five now belonging to the American fauna, instead of the three there mentioned. Of the species usually assigned to the genus, one, L. arctoa, is quite different in form, lacking the ridge of the mandible, etc., and in having the ends of the secondaries graduated in the closed wing, instead of being all on the same line. The colors, too, are normally different; in arctoa being dusky, with silvery-gray wings and tail, without rose tips to the feathers of the posterior part of body; and in Leucosticte proper, the wings and tail being dark-brown narrowly edged with whitish, or more broadly, like the ends of the feathers of the body behind, with rose-color. For the present, however, we shall combine the species, not having before us any American specimens of L. arctoa.

From the regular gradation of each form into the other—the extremes being thus connected by an unbroken chain of intermediate forms—it seems reasonable to consider all the North American forms as referable to one species (L. tephrocotis, SW., 1831) as geographical races. They may be distinguished as follows:—

COMMON CHARACTERS. Body anteriorly chocolate-brown; posteriorly tinged with rose-red. Wing-coverts (broadly) and quills edged with the same. Head above light ashy or silvery-gray, as are also the feathers around the base of upper mandible; the forehead and a patch on crown blackish. Throat dusky.

Additional Characters. The chocolate-colored feathers and the secondary quills, sometimes the tail-feathers and greater wing-coverts, edged with pale brownish-white or fulvous; the interscapulars with darker centres. Rose of rump and upper tail-coverts in form of transverse bands at end of feathers, that of abdomen more a continuous wash. Lining of wings and axillars white, tinged with rose at ends of feathers. Feathers of crissum dark brown, edged with whitish, sometimes tinged with rose. Bill generally reddish or yellowish, with blackish tip.

A. Auriculars chocolate-brown.

1. Whole side of head below the eye, including the auriculars, chocolate-brown. Chin not bordered anteriorly with ash. In the breeding-season, head darker and ash wanting. Wing, 4.35; tail, 3.00; bill, .44; tarsus, .72. Hab. Interior regions of North America … var. tephrocotis.

2. Cheeks, lores, and anterior border of the chin ash-color. Wing, 4.00; tail, 2.80; bill, .44; tarsus, .70. Hab. Colorado and Wyoming Territories … var. campestris.

B. Auriculars ash-color.

3. Wing, 4.30; tail, 3.00; bill, .40; tarsus (?). Chocolate of the breast, etc., light, exactly as in tephrocotis; rose beneath restricted to the abdomen; lores and chin light ash. Hab. Northwest coast from Kodiak to Fort Simpson, east to Wyoming Territory … var. littoralis.

4. Wing, 4.60; tail, 3.40; bill, .40; tarsus, .78. Chocolate very dark, inclining to sepia; rose extending forward on to the breast; lores blackish; chin dusky gray. Hab. Aleutian Islands (St. George’s, Unalaschka, and Kodiak) … var. griseinucha.

A closely allied species[113] from Kamtschatka and the Kurile Island differs mainly in having the nasal feathers as well as the head blackish, but without distinct patch on the top, and the nape rusty, in contrast with the back. It is about the size of L. tephrocotis. This species may yet be detected in the westernmost Aleutians.

Leucosticte tephrocotis,[114] SWAINSON.

GRAY-CROWNED FINCH.

Linaria (Leucosticte) tephrocotis, SW. F. Bor. Am. II, 1831, 255, pl. 1. Leucosticte tephrocotis, SW. Birds II, 1837.—Bon. Consp. 1850, 536.—BAIRD, Stansbury’s Salt Lake, 1852, 317.—IB. Birds N. Am. 1858, 430.—COOPER, Orn. Cal. 1, 164. _Erythrospiza tephrocotis_, Bon. List, 1838.—AUD. Syn. 1839.—IB. Birds Am. III, 1841, 176, pl. cxcviii. Fringilla tephrocotis, AUD. Orn. Biog. V. 1839, 232, pl. ccccxxiv.

SP. CHAR. (No. 19,255.) Male in winter. General color dark chocolate-brown or umber, lighter and more chestnut below; the feathers to a considerable degree with paler edges (most evident in immature specimens), those of back with darker centres. Nasal bristly feathers, and those along base of maxilla, and the hind head to nape ash-gray, this color forming a square patch on top of head, and not extending below level of eyes. A frontal blackish patch extending from base of bill (excepting the bristly feathers immediately adjacent to it), and reaching somewhat beyond the line of the eyes, with convex outline behind, and extending less distinctly on the loral region. Chin and throat darker chestnut, not grayish anteriorly. Body behind dusky; the feathers of abdomen and flanks washed, and of crissum, rump, and upper tail-coverts tipped, with rose-red; wing-coverts, and to some extent quills, edged with the same; otherwise with white. Bill yellowish, with dusky tip; feet black. Length before skinning, 6.50; extent, 11.50. Skin: Length, 6.50; wing, 4.30; tail, 3.00.

Young. Pattern of coloration as in the adult of L. tephrocotis; ash similarly restricted, but with the black frontal patch badly defined. The brown of the plumage, however, is of an entirely different shade from that of adult specimens of tephrocotis, being of a blackish-sepia cast, much darker, even, than in griseinucha; each feather also broadly bordered terminally with paler, these borders being whitish on the throat and breast, brownish on the nape and back, and light rose (broadly) on the scapulars. The whole abdomen, flanks, and crissum are nearly continuously peach-blossom pink, which, with that of the lesser and middle wing-coverts and rump, is of a finer and brighter tint than in adults. The other edgings to wings are pale ochraceous; under side of wing pure white. Bill dull yellow, dusky toward tip. Wing, 4.20; tail, 3.80. (60,638, Uintah Mountains, Utah, September 20, 1870; DR. F. V. HAYDEN.)

The young specimen described was obtained during the summer of 1871 in the Uintah Mountains; and were it not unmistakably a bird of the year, it would be considered almost a distinct species, so different is it from adult specimens of tephrocotis.

HABITS. Of the history and habits of this well-marked and strikingly peculiar bird, but little is known. It was first described by Swainson from a single specimen, obtained on the Saskatchewan Plains, in May, by Dr. Richardson’s party. Specimens were afterwards procured in Captain Stansbury’s expedition, near Salt Lake City, Utah, in March, 1850. Dr. Hayden found them very abundant on the Laramie Plains during the winter season, and Mr. Pearsall obtained numbers about Fort Benton. Dr. Cooper has also seen one specimen brought from somewhere east of Lake Tahoe, in Washoe, by Mr. F. Gruber. They were said to be plentiful there in the cold winter of 1861-62. Dr. Cooper thinks it probable that they visit the similar country east of the northern Sierra Nevada, in California.

A single flock of what is presumed to have been this species was seen by Mr. Ridgway, on the 5th of January, in the outskirts of Virginia City, Nevada. The flock was flitting restlessly over the snow in the manner of the Plectrophanes.

Nothing has been ascertained, so far as we are now informed, as to its nest, eggs, or general distribution during the breeding-season.

Mr. J. K. Lord states that he met with a flock of these rare and beautiful birds on the summit of the Cascade Mountains. It was late in October, and he observed a flock of nine or ten birds pecking along the ground, and feeding somewhat in the manner of Larks. Puzzled to know what birds they could be at such an altitude so late in the year, he fired among them and secured three, a female and two males in fine plumage. (Perhaps var. littoralis.)

In July of the following summer, on the summit of the Rocky Mountains, near the Kootanie Pass, he again saw these birds feeding on the ground. He shot several, but they were all young birds of the year. It is therefore rendered probable that these Finches breed on the Cascade and Rocky Mountains, in both at about the same altitude, or seven thousand feet, coming into the lowlands during the winter, as it is not likely that they could endure the cold of the summits, or find there a sufficiency of food, the winter being very severe, and the snow three feet, or more in depth.

Mr. Charles N. Holden, a promising young ornithologist of Chicago, who observed these birds among the Black Hills, near Sherman, at an altitude of eight thousand feet above the sea, has furnished me with interesting observations in regard to them. He informs me that he did not meet with these birds there in summer. They came in small flocks in the coldest part of winter. Their food consisted of small seeds and insects. In some instances he found the crops so distended with seeds as to distort their shape. They become very fat, and are excellent eating. In one specimen, a young male, the plumage was almost black, as described at the beginning of this article. These birds were quite numerous, and nearly forty specimens were secured. He was not able to learn anything in reference to their breeding-places. Except by dissection, he found it difficult to distinguish between a young male of the first year and a female.

If the specimen referred to in the foot-note at the beginning of this article as collected by Mr. Allen on Mount Lincoln be really this species, an important advance in its history will have been reached, showing that their summers are spent in the high mountain summits, and that the rest of the year is passed lower down on the plains.

Leucosticte tephrocotis, var. campestris, BAIRD.

THE GRAY-CHEEKED FINCH.

Leucosticte campestris, BAIRD, COOPER, Orn. Cal. 1, 163, 1870.

SP. CHAR. Body light chocolate-brown, the feathers edged with paler, those of the back with rather darker centres. Feathers of anal region, flanks behind, crissum, rump, and upper tail-coverts, wing-coverts, and primary quills, edged with rose-red; secondary quills and tail-feathers with pale fulvous; little or no trace of rose on under wings. Forehead and patch on crown blackish; the hind head to nape, cheeks immediately under the eye (but not including the auriculars, except, perhaps, the most anterior) and base of lower mandible all round, ashy-gray. Throat dusky. Bill yellowish, with dusky tip. Legs dusky.

No. 41,527, near Denver City, Col., January, 1862 (DR. C. WERNIGK). Length, 7.00; wing, 4.00; tail, 3.00; exposed portion of first primary, 3.10. Bill from forehead, .60; from nostril, .40; tarsus, .75; middle toe and claw, .80; claw alone .24; hind toe and claw, .80; claw alone, .37.

HAB. Colorado Territory (DR. WERNIGK); Wyoming Territory (MR. H. R. DURKEE).

This form bears a close resemblance to L. tephrocotis, and may, indeed, be a variety of it; but as it differs in the characters that appear generally to be those most constant in Leucosticte, and as, in fifty skins of the tephrocotis from one locality, we have seen nothing like it, we are inclined to consider them distinct. The size and general appearance are much the same, the difference being that in tephrocotis the whole cheeks are chocolate below the level of the eye, the chin without any gray; while in campestris the sides of head below the eye, but not including the ears, with a narrow border of the chin, are of this color.

From littoralis this form may be distinguished by the less extent of ash on the cheeks, which in littoralis covers the whole ears, and extends back farther on the head all round. L. griseinucha is marked like littoralis, and is much larger than either. Possibly it may be well to entertain the idea of its being a hybrid between tephrocotis and littoralis or griseinucha.

The specimen described was presented to the Smithsonian Institution by Dr. Wernigk, and at the time was supposed to be L. tephrocotis.

Of this form, nothing as to its habits is known with certainty. It probably does not differ in any important respect from the allied races.

Leucosticte tephrocotis, var. littoralis, BAIRD.

HEPBURN’S FINCH.

Leucosticte griseinucha, ELLIOT, Illust. Birds Am. X. Leucosticte littoralis, BAIRD, Tr. Ch. A. S. I, 1869, 318, pl. xxviii, f. 1.—DALL & BANNISTER, IB. p. 282.—COOPER, Orn. Cal. 1, 162.

SP. CHAR. Body chocolate-brown, the feathers narrowly margined with paler, those of the back with rather darker centres. Abdomen, flanks, crissum, rump, upper tail-coverts, wing-coverts, and quills edged with rose-red, more or less continuous (least so on the rump); the outer edges of secondaries and tail-feathers pale fulvous, the latter with a rosy shade. Head silvery-gray; the forehead and patch on crown black; the chin gray, continuous with that of cheek; the throat dark brown, shading into the chocolate of breast. Bill yellowish, the extreme tip dusky. Nasal feathers white. Length, 7.10; wing. 4.30; tail, 3.10; exposed portion of first primary, 3.40. Length of bill from forehead, .60; from nostril, .35. Tarsus, .76.

HAB. Kodiak (BISCHOFF); Sitka (BISCHOFF); Fort Simpson, British Columbia (HEPBURN); Gilmer, Wyoming (DURKEE).

This race, which we believe to be the Southern coast representative of griseinucha, bears much resemblance to that bird, but is considerably smaller; the colors are brighter and lighter, more like those of tephrocotis, and the bill is shorter and more conical, the dark patch on the head more restricted, the chin more ashy, and the brown of the head not so far forward. From tephrocotis it is distinguished by the extension of the ash of head below the eye; and from campestris by having the ear-coverts ashy, instead of the anterior portion of the cheeks only; and there is apparently a greater extent of gray on the chin.

Specimens obtained at Kodiak in February are distinguishable from specimens of griseinucha, obtained with them at the same place, only by their much smaller size, and lighter chocolate tints. The occurrence of both these races at the same place, at the same time, is a subject for speculation. A perfectly typical specimen (No. 59,906) is in the collection from Gilmer, Wyoming Territory, obtained by Mr. H. R. Durkee, a frequent contributor to the collections of the Smithsonian Institution, and sent by him along with numerous specimens of L. tephrocotis, with which it appears to have been mixed.

Leucosticte tephrocotis, var. griseinucha, BAIRD.

THE GRAY-EARED FINCH.

Passer arctous, var. γ, PALLAS, Zoög. Rosso-asiat. II (1831), 23. Fringilla (Linaria) griseinucha, BRANDT, Bull. Acad. St. Petersburg, Nov. 1841, 36. _Montifringilla (Leucosticte) griseinucha_, BON. & SCHL. Mon. Loxiens (1850), 35, pl. xli. Leucosticte griseinucha, BAIRD, Birds N. Am. 430.—KITTLITZ, Denkwürdigkeiten (1858), I, 291.—DALL & BANNISTER, Tr. Ch. Ac. Sc. I, 1869, 282.—BAIRD, IB. p. 317, pl. xxviii, f. 2.—ELLIOT, Illust. Am. B. pl. xi.—COOPER, Orn. Cal. 1, 161. Leucosticte griseigenys, GOULD, Voy. Sulphur.

SP. CHAR. Description of specimen No. 54,246: General color dark brownish-chocolate anteriorly, the feathers of back rather darker in the centre, and with paler edges. Forehead and crown black; rest of the head, including the cheeks and ears, of a rather silvery gray; throat blackish, shading off insensibly into the chocolate of breast. Feathers of abdomen (and hinder part of breast to a less degree), flanks and crissum, with the rump and upper tail-coverts, and lesser and middle wing-coverts, tipped with dark pomegranate or rose-red, allowing more or less of thin dusky bases to be seen, especially above, where there is an appearance of bars. Wing and tail feathers brown, nearly all, including the greater wing-coverts, edged with pale yellowish-gray with only a faint tinge of rose. Bill dusky; darkest at tip. Legs black.

Dimensions: Total length, 7.50; wing, 4.80; tail, 3.50. Exposed portion of first primary, 3.50. Bill, from forehead, .69; from nostril, .42. Legs: tarsus, .95; middle toe and claw, .92; claw alone, .35; hind toe and claw, .69; claw alone, .38.

HAB. Aleutian Islands (St. George’s and Unalaschka).

This is considerably the largest of the American species of Leucosticte, and has a longer bill. It also has the chocolate and rose color darker, and the rose extending farther forward on the breast than in other species. It could only be confounded with C. littoralis as to color, both having the head above, and on the sides, ashy, covering the whole ear-coverts; but the dusky patch on the crown is more extended, the ash of chin more restricted, and the throat darker. The rose extends farther along the breast, and the tints are different. The size is much larger.

A specimen, apparently young, perhaps a female, differs in duller tints, and a tinge of ochreous-yellow on the middle of the abdomen and crissum. The lining of the wings is without any rose-color.

Bonaparte and Schlegel describe the young of this species as without rose-color.

Specimens of this bird were obtained at St. George’s Island, with the eggs (which are white), by Mr. W. H. Dall. Dr. Minor found it at Unalaschka.

HABITS. The Gray-eared Finch is the largest species of this remarkable genus known to inhabit North America. Thus far, except in one instance, it has been met with only in the Aleutian Islands and Unalaschka. In the latter place they were met with by Dr. T. T. Minor, and in the former by Mr. Dall.

Mr. R. Brown (Ibis, 1868, p. 432) states that a single specimen of this very rare bird was taken at Fort Rupert, Vancouver Island, in June, 1862, by Mr. P. M. Compton, the officer in charge of that station. This, however, may have belonged to the var. littoralis.

Mr. Dall states that they abound on the Pribylow and the other Aleutian Islands. A number of specimens were obtained on the St. George’s in August, though at that time they were moulting. At that season this bird had no song except a clear chirp, sounding like wéet-a wèet-a-wée-weet. It was on the wing a great part of the time, rarely alighting on the ground, but darting rapidly in a series of descending and ascending curves. At one time it would swing on the broad top of an umbelliferous plant, and at another alight on some ledge of the perpendicular bluff, jumping from point to point, as if delighting to test its own agility. Mr. Dall adds that its nest is a simple hollow on one of the ledges, provided with a few straws or a bit of moss. They deposit their eggs in May, and these are four in number. In August their young were fully fledged.

They feed on the seeds of grasses and other small plants, but in the crop of one Mr. Dall found two or three small beetles. They were also received from Kodiak, through Mr. Bischoff.

Their eggs are of a grayish-white, with a slight tinge of yellowish, and measure .95 by .70 of an inch.

GENUS PLECTROPHANES, MEYER.

Plectrophanes, MEYER, “Taschenbuch, 1810.” Agassiz. (Type, Emberiza nivalis.) Centrophanes, KAUP, “Entw. Gesch. Europ. Thierwelt, 1829.” Agassiz. (Type, E. lapponica.)

GEN. CHAR. Bill variable; conical; the lower mandible higher than the upper; the sides of both mandibles (in the typical species) guarded by a closely applied brush of stiffened bristly feathers directed forwards, and in the upper jaw concealing the nostrils; the outlines of the bill nearly straight, or slightly curved; the lower jaw considerably broader at the base than the upper, and wider than the gonys is long. Tarsi considerably longer than the middle toe; the lateral toes nearly equal (the inner claw largest), and reaching to the base of the middle claw. The hinder claw very long, moderately curved and acute, considerably longer than its toe; the toe and claw together reaching to the middle of the middle claw, or beyond its tip. Wings very long and much pointed, reaching nearly to the end of the tail; the first quill longest; the others rapidly graduated; the tertiaries a little longer than the secondaries. Tail moderate, about two thirds as long as the wings; nearly even, or slightly emarginated.

[Line drawing: Plectrophanes nivalis. 19632]

The species of this genus are essentially boreal and cosmopolitan, although America possesses four species not found, like her two others, in the Old World. They are all ground-birds, collecting in large flocks, in autumn and winter, on prairies and plains, some of the species passing far to the southward. There is much variation in the color, and in the details of structure of bill and feet. In P. nivalis alone is the fringe of bristly feathers along the side of the bill very distinct. The gonys also is exceptionally short, being less than half the length of the culmen.

The females are less strongly marked than the males, lacking the distinct patches of black (which, however, are nearly always faintly indicated), and other characters, and are streaked like the Spizellinæ.

Species and Varieties.

A. Prevailing color white.

1. P. nivalis. ♂. Back, scapulars, ends of tertials, alula, terminal half of primaries and the middle tail-feathers, deep black; otherwise pure white. ♀. The black replaced by grayish with black spots; crown grayish spotted with black. Young considerably tinged with ochraceous. Hab. Circumpolar regions; south in winter into the United States.

B. Above brown, spotted with black. ♂. Crown black.

a. Six to ten middle tail-feathers almost wholly black; the rest without black ends. ♂ with a nuchal collar of rufous or buff, and without rufous on the wings.

2. P. lapponicus. ♂. Head, all round, and jugulum, deep black; a post-ocular stripe, running downward behind the black jugular patch, and entire lower parts from the jugulum, white. Nuchal collar chestnut-rufous. ♀ with the black areas merely indicated by a dusky clouding, and merely a tinge of rufous round the nape. Hab. Circumpolar regions; south in winter into the United States.

3. P. pictus. ♂. Head above and laterally deep black, bordered anteriorly and below with white; a post-ocular stripe, and an ovate auricular spot of the same. Nuchal collar and entire lower surface bright buff. ♀. Pale grayish-buff, darker above; above distinctly, and on the jugulum obsoletely, streaked with black. Hab. Interior plains of North America, north to Arctic Ocean.

4. P. ornatus. ♂ Head above, and whole breast and abdomen, black; a superciliary stripe, side of head, chin, throat, anal region and crissum, white; nuchal collar rufous. ♀ hardly distinguishable from that of P. pictus.

a. Lesser wing-coverts brownish-gray; black feathers of breast, etc., without rufous edges. Hab. Interior plains of United States … var. ornatus.

b. Lesser wing-coverts black; black feathers of breast, etc., with rufous edges. Hab. Southern plains of North America, and table-land of Mexico … var. melanomus.

b. Only two middle tail-feathers almost wholly black; the rest with black ends. ♂ without a nuchal collar of rufous or buff, and with rufous on the wings.

5. P. maccowni. ♂. Crown, and a broad crescent on the jugulum, black; rest of head and neck ashy, approaching white on the throat and over the eye; beneath white, above grayish-brown, streaked with black; middle wing-coverts rufous. ♀. Above yellowish-umber, beneath yellowish-white; thickly streaked above, unstreaked beneath. No rufous on wings, and no black on head or jugulum. Hab. Plains, from Texas, northward.

There seems to be no special reason for subdividing this genus, although this has been done,—P. nivalis being alone retained in Plectrophanes; P. maccowni forming the type and sole member of the genus Rhyncophanes (Baird, 1858), and the rest coming under Centrophanes (Kaup). The characters upon which these are based are very trivial, being mainly the varying degree of size of the bill and length of the hind claw. In this latter respect there is too much individual variation in the same species to admit of this being available as a specific, much less as a subgeneric character, while the size of the bill is not of more than specific importance.

Plectrophanes nivalis, MEYER.

SNOW-BUNTING.

Emberiza nivalis, LINN. Syst. Nat. I, 1766, 308 (not _Fringilla nivalis_, L.).—FORSTER, Phila. Trans. LXII, 1772, 403.—WILSON, Am. Orn. III, 1811, 86, pl. xxi.—AUD. Orn. Biog. II, 1834, 575; V, 1839, 496, pl. 189. Emberiza (Plectrophanes) nivalis, BON. Obs. 1825, No. 89. “Plectrophanes nivalis, MEYER.”—BON. List, 1838.—AUD. Syn. 1839, 103.—IB. Birds Am. III, 1841, 55, pl. 155.—MAX. Cab. J. VI, 1858, 345 (Spitzbergen).—BAIRD, Birds N. Am. 1858, 432.—NEWTON, Ibis, 1865, 502.—DALL & BANNISTER, Tr. Ch. A. S. I, 1869, 282 (Alaska).—COOPER, Orn. Cal. 1, 177.—SAMUELS, 296. Emberiza montana, GMELIN, Syst. I, 1788, 867, 25. _Emberiza mustelina_, GMELIN, Syst. I, 1788, 867, 7. Emberiza glacialis, LATHAM, Ind. Orn. I, 1790, 398.

SP. CHAR. Male. Colors, in spring plumage, entirely black and white. Middle of back between scapulars, terminal half of primaries and tertiaries, and two innermost tail-feathers, black; elsewhere pure white. Legs black at all seasons. In winter dress white beneath; the head and rump yellowish-brown, as also some blotches on the side of the breast; middle of back brown, streaked with black; white on wings and tail much more restricted. Length about 6.75; wings, 4.35; tail, 3.05; first quill longest. Female. Spring, continuous white beneath only; above entirely streaked, the feathers having blackish centres and whitish edges; the black streaks predominate on the back and crown. Young. Light gray above with obsolete dusky streaks on the back; throat and jugulum paler gray, the latter with obsolete streaks; rest of lower parts dull white. Wing-coverts, secondaries, and tail-feathers broadly edged with light ochraceous-brown.

HAB. Northern America from Atlantic to Pacific; south into the United States in winter, as far as Georgia and Southern Illinois.

Specimens from North America and Europe appear to be quite identical; there is, however, a great amount of variation among individuals.

HABITS. The common Snow Bunting is found throughout northern North America to the shores of the Arctic Sea, and in the winter months extends its migrations into the United States as indicated above.

Mr. Dall states that in Alaska, when observed, they went altogether in flocks. It was at times excessively common, and at others entirely absent. It builds its nests on the hillside, generally on the ground, under the lee of a stone. He obtained a large number of these birds at Nulato, in the winter of 1867-68. It was much more common there than the P. lapponicus, which was only seen in the spring, while this bird was there all the year round. Mr. Dall also met with these birds on St. George’s Island, and Mr. Bischoff obtained them at Sitka. According to Mr. Bannister’s observations it was altogether less abundant than the P. lapponicus, and seemed to prefer rather different situations. On St. Michael’s Island he never saw one of this species far from the shore, while the other species was abundant everywhere in the interior of the island. During the summer he never saw more than one or two of these birds at once, nor anywhere except on rocky points or on small rocky islands near the shore. These localities they seemed to share with the Ravens and Puffins. In the autumn they are more gregarious, but still seem to prefer the vicinity of water. Mr. Bannister also observed this bird at Unalaklik, where it is common.

Wilson was of the opinion that these birds derive a considerable part of their food from the seeds of certain aquatic plants, and this he supposed one of the principal reasons why they prefer remote northern regions intersected with streams, ponds, lakes, and arms of the sea, abounding with such plants. On Seneca River, near Lake Ontario, in October, he met with a large flock feeding on the surface of the water, supported on the close tops of weeds that rose from the bottom. They were running about with great activity, and the stomachs of those he shot were filled not only with the seeds of that plant, but also with minute shell-fish that adhered to the leaves.

Richardson states that this species breeds in the most northern of our Arctic islands, and on all the shores of the continent, from Chesterfield’s Inlet to Behring Strait. The most southerly of its breeding-places known to him was Southampton Island, in the 62d parallel, where Captain Lyons found a nest on the grave of an Esquimaux child. Its nest was usually made of dry grass, neatly lined with deer’s hair and a few feathers, and is generally fixed in the crevice of a rock, or in a loose pile of timbers or stones. The eggs are described as of a greenish-white, with a circle of irregular umber-brown spots round the larger end, with numerous blotches of subdued lavender-purple. July 22, in removing some drift timber on a beach at Cape Parry, he discovered a nest on the ground, containing four young Snowbirds. Care was taken not to injure them, and while they were seated at breakfast, at a distance of only two or three feet, the parent birds made frequent visits to their offspring, each time bringing grubs in their bills. The Snowbirds are in no apparent haste to leave for the South on the approach of winter, but linger about the forts and open places, picking up seeds, until the snow becomes too deep. It is not until December or January that they retire to the south of the Saskatchewan. It returns to that river about the middle of February, by April it has reached the 65th parallel, and by the beginning of May it is found on the shores of the Polar Sea. At this period it feeds on the buds of the Saxifraga oppositifolia, one of the earliest of the Arctic plants. The young are fed with insects.

The Snow Bunting is also an inhabitant, during the breeding-season, of the Arctic regions of Europe and Asia, and the islands of the Arctic Sea. Scoresby states that it resorts in large flocks to the shores of Spitzbergen, and Captain Sabine includes it among the birds of Greenland and the North Georgian Islands, where it is among the earliest arrivals. Mr. Proctor, who visited Iceland in 1837, found the Snowbird breeding there in June. He found their nests placed among large stones or in the fissures of rocks, composed of dry grass lined with hair and feathers. The eggs were from four to six in number. The male attends the female during incubation. Mr. Proctor states that he has seen this bird, when coming from the nest, rise up in the air and sing sweetly, with its wings and tail spread in the manner of the Tree Pipit. Linnæus, in his Tour in Lapland, mentions seeing these birds in that country about the end of May, and also in July. He also mentions that this bird is the only living thing that has been seen two thousand feet above the line of perpetual snow in the Lapland Alps. This bird also breeds on the Faroe Islands. Mr. Hewitson found its nest in Norway. It contained young, and was built under some loose stones. Young birds have also been noticed early in August among the Grampians, in Scotland, rendering it probable that they breed in that locality, and perhaps in considerable numbers. As the severity of winter increases, they leave the heaths where they have fed upon the seeds of grasses, and descend to the lowlands, frequenting the oat-stubbles, and, when the snow is deep, approaching the coast. Their call-note is pleasing, and is often repeated during their flight, which they make in a very compact body. Before settling on the ground they make sudden wheels, coming almost into collision with each other, uttering at the same time a peculiar guttural note. They run on the ground with all the ease of Larks, and rarely perch. Temminck states that they are very abundant in winter along the sea-coast of Holland.

Their appearance in Massachusetts is usually with the first heavy falls of snow, in December and January. They are most abundant in the open places near the sea-coast, and formerly were very numerous in the marshes between Boston and Brookline. A wounded male in full adult plumage was taken by me, in 1838, and kept some time in confinement. It would not accustom itself to a cage, and a large box was prepared in which it could run more at large. It fed readily on grain and cracked corn, delighted to bathe itself several times in the day, but would not be reconciled to my near presence. On my approach it would rush about its prison, uttering its peculiar call-notes, blending with them a loud guttural cry of alarm. As the spring approached, it warbled occasionally a few notes, but uttered from time to time such mournful cries, as if bewailing its captivity, that it would have been released, had its crippled condition permitted it to take care of itself. It was given in charge of a friend, but did not live through the heat of the ensuing summer.

It is stated that a nest of this bird was found among the White Mountains by Mr. Kirk Boott, of Boston, in the summer of 1834. It contained young birds. This, if the identification was correct, was probably an accidental occurrence. None have been noticed there since, nor have I ever been able to find any of the permanent residents among the mountains that have met with these birds in that region, except in winter.

The only authenticated nest and eggs (10,433) in the Smithsonian collection were received from Mr. R. MacFarlane, with the parent, taken on the Arctic coast east of Fort Anderson, and having on the label, “Nest situated in a cave in a sand-bank.” The nest is deeply saucer-shaped, and composed of wiry grass-stems, with a few feathers in the lining; external diameter 3.75 inches, internal about 3.00; depth, 2.50 externally and 1.50 internally. The eggs, five in number, are of a dull white, with perhaps a faint bluish cast, sprinkled and spattered with dilute yellowish-rufous, the markings most numerous toward the larger end; they measure .95 of an inch in length by .64 in breadth.

Plectrophanes lapponicus, SELBY.

LAPLAND LONGSPUR.

“Fringilla lapponica, LINN. Fauna Suecica, 1761, sp. 235.”—IB. Syst. Nat. I, 1766, 317. FORSTER, Phil. Trans. LXII, 1772, 404. Emberiza (Plectrophanes) lapponica, SW. F. B. Am. II, 1831, 248, pl. xlviii. Emberiza lapponica, AUD. Orn. Biog. IV, 1838, 473, pl. 365. Plectrophanes lapponicus, “SELBY,” BON. List, 1838.—AUD. Syn. 1839, 98.—IB. Birds Am. III, 1841, 50, pl. 152.—BAIRD, Birds N. Am. 1858, 433.—DALL & BANNISTER, Tr. Ch. A. S. I, 1869, 283 (Alaska).—COOPER, Orn. Cal. 1, 178.—SAMUELS, 300. “Centrophanes lapponicus, KAUP, Entw. Gesch. Europe Thierw. 1829.”—CABANIS, Mus. Hein. 1851, 127. “Fringilla calcarata, PALL. Itin. 710, sp. 20,” French ed. III, 1793, 464, pl. i. Centrophanes calcaratus, GRAY, List Gen. 1841, App. 1842, 11.

SP. CHAR. Male. Head all round, and neck black, extending on the jugulum in a crescentic patch; a broad line from above and behind the eye, sides of neck, a patch in the black of hind head, and whole under parts, white; the sides of body streaked broadly with black. A broad half-collar of chestnut on back of neck, separated from the hood narrowly, and from the auriculars and throat broadly, by the white stripe from the eye. Above brownish-black, the feathers sharply edged with brownish-yellow. Outer tail-feathers white, except the basal portion of inner web, and a shaft streak at end; next feather with a white streak in end, rest black. Legs black; bill yellow, tipped with black. In winter plumage the black and other markings overlaid by rusty and fulvous; beneath by whitish. Female with the black feathers of head edged with yellowish-rusty; the throat white, bordered on the sides and behind by blackish; feathers edged with grayish-white, the rufous of nape obscure, and streaked with blackish. Length of male, 6.25; wing, 3.90; tail, 2.80.

[Line drawing: 19647 ♂]

HAB. Northern portions of the Old and the New World; breeding in arctic and subarctic regions, and in winter descending southward, as far at least as New York, Southern Illinois, and Fort Garland, New Mexico.

Autumnal specimens, of both sexes, differ in having the pattern of coloration obscured by ochraceous borders to the feathers, and a general rusty cast to the plumage.

There appears to be no difference between North American and European specimens of this bird.

HABITS. The Lapland Longspur is an Arctic resident, belonging equally to the two continents, rarely descending even in winter to temperate regions, and then chiefly in its immature plumage. In Europe, according to Yarrell, only a few specimens have been found in the British Islands, and these were single individuals, mostly found in company with Larks. They have also been taken in France, in Belgium, and in different parts of Germany. Degland states that these birds are occasionally snared on the coast at Dunkirk, and in the neighborhood of Antwerp, but these are always young males in their winter plumage.

Pennant states that it is found in Siberia, and near the Ural Mountains, migrating in the winter as far south as Switzerland; and, according to Necker, they have also been taken, always in company with Larks, in the vicinity of Geneva. It inhabits Norway, Sweden, the Faroe Islands, Spitzbergen, Iceland, and Greenland, in the summer.

Richardson mentions that the Lapland Bunting is common in the fur regions, wintering on the coast of Hudson’s Bay. During its stay it feeds on grass-seed, the fruit of the juniper, and the pines. As he never met with these birds during the winter, he suspects that their principal retreats are on the borders of Lakes Huron and Superior, and the country westward. In 1827 they appeared on the plains, at the Carlton House, about the middle of May, in very large flocks, in company with Shore Larks and the P. picta, frequenting the open spots where the fires had destroyed the grass. In the same season they came a few days later to the Cumberland House, and kept constantly about the furrows of the new-ploughed fields. The year before they had been, in smaller flocks, in the vicinity of Fort Franklin, latitude 65°, in the beginning of May. Their crops were found filled with seeds of the alpine arbutus.

Mr. Audubon met with them in enormous flocks in Kentucky, about February 15, 1819. They were in company with the Shore Larks and the Snow Buntings. None of these were in perfect plumage.

Mr. Ridgway cites this as a common winter visitant in Southern Illinois, abundant in unusually severe winters, either in large flocks by itself, or a few individuals mixed up in flocks of Shore Larks.

Mr. Dall gives May 12 as the date of the first arrival of these birds at Nulato, and adds that it is not at any time a very common bird. He was not able to find its nest at Nulato, but was informed by the Indians that it builds on the bare hillsides, in hillocks of grass, and that it does not leave the nest when any one approaches, but sits perfectly still, and thus often escapes detection. He considers it a very fine singer. Specimens were received from Sitka, obtained by Bischoff. To this account Mr. Bannister adds that it is by far the most abundant of the land-birds found at St. Michael’s. It appeared on that island about the 6th of May, and from that time until about the middle or latter part of September they were observed in great numbers all over the island. He, too, was not successful in finding its nest, though the birds were started up by hundreds on every walk over the island. From this he infers that they must be very carefully concealed. He often searched for them, but always with the same result. Mr. Bannister regarded this species as decidedly the best songster of its family.

In the far North it is an extremely abundant species from one ocean to the other, in the winter moving farther south, to the United States, in large flocks. It has not been found in California, but in the central and eastern regions has been obtained as far south as Leavenworth, Kan., Racine, Wis., Boston, and New York. It is stated by different observers, that, like the Lark, it sings only while in motion in the air, or while suspended, and that its notes are agreeable and melodious.

According to Richardson, they breed in moist meadows on the shores of the Arctic Sea, the nest being placed in a small hillock, among moss and stones. It is composed externally of dry stems of grass, interwoven to a considerable thickness, and lined very neatly and compactly with deer’s hair. The eggs, seven in number, he describes as pale ochre-yellow, spotted with brown. Sir James Ross found them by no means numerous in the higher northern latitudes, and obtained one nest, containing five eggs, in July.

According to Holböll, this bird is common along the shores of both North and South Greenland. They reach Godhaab in the beginning of May, and Godhaven a month later. Their migrations do not take place all at once, but they are constantly arriving during the month. It remains in South Greenland until the beginning of September, and longer if the deep snows do not drive it away. This bird is never met on shipboard until the vessels are in Davis Strait, proving that their migrations must be from America. The Greenlanders call it Narksamatak (inhabitant of the plains),—an appropriate name, as it only lives on the lowlands near the sea-shore, where it builds its nest in the manner of the Lark, in the grass, or among the lichens. Its five eggs, of a dirty olive-color spotted with brown, are smaller than those of P. nivalis. The song of the male bird, as it hovers in the air or rocks on a swaying twig, is very clear and melodious. It is even known as the Greenland Nightingale. Its food is seeds, and it is not known to seek insect-larvæ on the houses of the Greenlanders, as does the P. nivalis. In their winter dress they all resemble the female in her summer plumage, only in the male some black is seen in the head-feathers.

Fabricius describes its eggs as five or six in number, of a reddish-gray with brownish spots. Degland describes their ground-color as an ashy-gray, covered with spots of light brown, with lines and spots of deep brown, and also of clear black.

Eggs from Anderson River exhibit great variations in their appearance, more from the difference in the distribution of their spots than from variations in colors. Where distinctly visible, the ground-color appears to be of yellowish-gray, frequently so thickly spotted as not to be recognizable. The blotches are of various shades of brown, with shadings of olive, purple, or red, and at times almost black. In some, fine olive-brown dots cover the egg so completely as to make it appear as of one uniform deep color. In others the brown is lighter and more of a reddish hue, and again in others the markings are in irregular distribution, and of different shades. They measure .80 by .60 of an inch.

Nest with eggs (7414), collected on Anderson River, Franklin Bay, June 27, by R. MacFarlane, was built on the ground, and is deeply saucer-shaped, measuring 3.75 in external and 2.30 in internal diameter; the depth 2.75 exteriorly and 1.50 interiorly. It is composed of coarse wiry grass-stems, and softly lined with feathers of Lagopus. The eggs, five in number, have the ground-color light umber-drab, this faintly blotched with deeper livid slate, and with a few straggly black lines, much as in certain Icteridæ and in Chondestes. They measure .86 of an inch in length by .63 in breadth.

Plectrophanes pictus, SWAINSON.

SMITH’S BUNTING; PAINTED LONGSPUR.

Emberiza (Plectrophanes) picta, SW. F. B. Am. II, 1831, 250, pl. 49 (spring).—NUTT. Man. II, 589. Plectrophanes pictus, AUD. Syn. 1839, 99.—IB. Birds Am. III, 1841, 52, pl. cliii (Richardson’s specimen).—BAIRD, Birds N. Am. 1858, 434.—DALL & BANNISTER, Tr. Ch. A. S. I, 1869, 283 (Alaska). Emberiza picta, AUD. Orn. Biog. V, 1839, 91, pl. cccc. Centrophanes pictus, CAB. Mus. Hein. 1851, 127. Plectrophanes smithi, AUD. Birds Am. VII, 1844, 337, pl. cccclxxxvii (winter).

SP. CHAR. Male. Spring. Top and sides of head black. A line from bill over the eye, lores, lower and posterior border of the black cheeks, ears (encircled by black), and a small patch in the nape, white. Entire under parts, and extending round neck to nape (where it bounds abruptly the black of head), buff or light cinnamon-yellow; the under tail-covert paler; the inside of wings, white. Feathers of upper surfaces black, edged with yellowish-gray; shoulders or lesser coverts and the greater black; middle white, forming a conspicuous patch. Quills edged externally with white, this involving the whole outer web of outermost primary. Whole of outer and most of second tail-feather white. Bill dusky; lower mandible and legs yellowish. Length, 5.50; wing, 3.50; tail, 2.75; bill, .45.

Female. The markings of male faintly indicated, but the black and buff wanting. Head above brown, streaked centrally with paler. A narrow dark line on each side the throat, and brownish streaks across the jugulum, and along sides of body. Traces visible of the white marks of the head. Bill and feet as in the male.

HAB. Prairies of Illinois and Missouri Plains, in winter; in summer north to the Arctic Ocean.

This species is quite similar in form to P. lapponicus, although with slenderer bill, and perhaps longer hind claw. While the colors of adult males are very different, the females have a decided resemblance; they may, however, be distinguished in all stages by the black or dusky legs of lapponicus and the yellow of pictus, and perhaps by the more dusky upper mandible of the latter.

HABITS. This species was first obtained by Sir John Richardson’s party, and described by Swainson in the Fauna Boreali-Americana. It was observed associating with the Lapland Buntings on the banks of the Saskatchewan, but no information was obtained in regard to its breeding-habits. No specimens in the mature plumage are known to have been obtained in the United States, but birds in the immature plumage are not unfrequent, in early spring, throughout Illinois. Mr. Audubon, in company with Mr. Harris and Mr. Bell, obtained specimens of these birds near Edwardsville, and described them as a new species. Mr. Bell states, in regard to these birds, that he found them very abundant on the low prairie near a lake, a few miles from Edwardsville. They were generally in large flocks, and when once on the ground they began to separate. They ran very nimbly, in a manner resembling that of the Grass Finch, and when they arose, which they rarely did unless they were nearly approached, they uttered a sharp click, repeated several times in quick succession, and moved with an easy undulating motion for a short distance and then alighted very suddenly, seeming to fall perpendicularly several feet to the ground. They preferred the spots where the grass was shortest. When in the air they flew in circles, to and fro, for a few minutes, and then alighted, keeping up a constant chirping or call, somewhat like that of the Red-Poll.

These birds were observed in large numbers at Fort Anderson, and on the Lower Anderson River, by Mr. MacFarlane, and a large number of their nests obtained. These were all on the ground, and usually in open spaces, but also in the vicinity of trees. The usual number of eggs found in a nest appears to have been four. The nests, for the most part, were constructed of fine dry grasses, carefully arranged, and lined with down, feathers, or finer materials similar to those of the outer portions. In a few there were no feathers; in others, feathers in different proportions; and in a few the down and feathers composed the chief portion of the nest, with only a few leaves as a base to the nest. They were sometimes sunk in excavations made by the birds, or placed in a tussock of grass, and, in one instance, placed in the midst of a bed of Labrador tea.

They were also obtained at Fort Yukon, at the mouth of Porcupine River, by Strachan Jones. They were much more abundant in the Mackenzie River district.

Specimens of this bird, in the fall plumage, were obtained from Fort Simpson, where Mr. B. R. Ross states that it appears on its way north in May. They resort to the fields around the fort in search of grain. Although these birds keep entirely apart from the P. nivalis, Mr. Ross has frequently observed several P. lapponicus associating with them.

When their nests are approached, the female quietly slips off, while the male bird may be seen hopping or flying from tree to tree in the neighborhood of the nest, and will at times do all he can to induce intruders to withdraw from the neighborhood.

The eggs, five in number, have a light clay-colored ground, are marked with obscure blotches of lavender and darker lines, dots, and blotches of dark purplish-brown. They measure .80 by .65 of an inch.

Plectrophanes ornatus, TOWNS.

CHESTNUT-COLLARED BUNTING; BLACK-BELLIED LONGSPUR.

Plectrophanes ornatus, TOWNSEND, J. Ac. Nat. Sc. VII, 1837, 189.—IB. Narrative, 1839, 344.—AUD. Syn. 1839, 99.—IB. Birds Am. III, 1841, 53, pl. cliv.—NUTT. Man. I, (2d ed.,) 1840, 537.—BAIRD, Birds N. Am. 1858, 435. Emberiza ornata, AUD. Orn. Biog. V, 1839, 44, pl. cccxciv, f. 1. Centrophanes ornatus, CABANIS, Mus. Hein. 1851, 127.

SP. CHAR. Bill dark plumbeous. Male. Crown, a narrow crescent on the side of the head, with a line running into it from behind the eye, entire breast and upper part of belly all round, black; throat and sides of the head, lower part of belly and under tail-coverts, with bases of the tail-feathers, white. The white on the tail-feathers runs forward as an acute point. A chestnut band on the back of the neck extending round on the sides. Rest of upper parts grayish-brown, streaked with darker. Middle coverts with a white patch. Lesser wing-coverts like the back. Legs dusky, bill blue, darker at tip. Length about 5.25 inches; wing, 3.20; tail, 2.30; tarsus, .75.

Female lacking the black and chestnut colors; the black of the breast indicated by dusky streaks and a line of streaks each side of the throat.

HAB. Plains of the Upper Missouri. San Antonio, Texas, spring (DRESSER, Ibis, 1865, 486).

HABITS. This species was first discovered by Mr. Townsend, who procured a single specimen, a male, on the Upper Missouri River. He describes it as by no means a common bird, keeping in pairs and living exclusively on the ground. It was remarkably shy, and Mr. Townsend was not able to procure more than a single specimen.

Mr. Nuttall states that he met with this bird early in May, on the wide grassy plains of the Platte. The birds were already paired for the season. He heard them utter no notes other than a chirp, as they kept busily foraging for their subsistence.

Mr. J. A. Allen (American Naturalist, May, 1872) speaks of this bird and the Lark Bunting as by far the most interesting species seen by him in Western Kansas. They were not only characteristic of the region, but were also among the few birds strictly confined to the arid plains. They were quite abundant, but were only met with on the high ridges and dry plateaus, where they seemed to live somewhat in colonies. At a few localities they were always numerous, but elsewhere would be frequently not met with in a whole day’s drive. They were very wary and tenacious of life, often flying a long distance after having been shot through vital parts. Most of the specimens had to be killed on the wing, at a long range. They are strong fliers, and seem to delight in flying in the strongest gales, when all the other birds appear to move with difficulty, and to keep themselves concealed among the grass. This bird sings while on the wing.

Mr. H. E. Dresser, in his paper on the birds of Southern Texas, mentions finding the Chestnut-collared Bunting in flocks early in the spring, on the prairies near San Antonio, but it was not a common bird there.

Dr. Woodhouse found this species quite rare in the Indian Territory, where he was only able to secure a single specimen.

Captain Blakiston met with this species on the Saskatchewan Plains on the 15th of May, 1858,—a higher range than has been noticed by any one else.

Dr. Heermann, while on a trip to the Rocky Mountains in 1843, met with this species in small flocks and pairs, scattered over the prairies of the Platte River, and was so fortunate as to meet with one of its nests. It was built on the ground, and was made of an interweaving of fine grasses and lined with hair. He describes the eggs, which were four in number, as having a white ground, with black lines at the larger end, and a few faint blotches of a neutral tint scattered over their whole surface.

This description does not quite correspond with the eggs collected by Mr. Audubon on the Upper Missouri. These have a clay-colored ground with the slightest possible tinge of green, and are marked with fine dots of purplish-brown, and larger markings, blotches, and short lines of dark brown. They measure .70 by .55 of an inch, and have a strong resemblance to the eggs of both P. pictus and P. maccowni.

Five eggs of this species, obtained at Fort Hays, Kansas, June 1, 1871, by Mr. J. A. Allen, measure .75 of an inch in length by .58 in breadth. They are small in proportion to the bird, and are somewhat pointed at one end. Their ground is a gray or grayish-white shade of stone-color, and this is somewhat sparingly marked with blotches of dark brown, almost black, and lighter markings of purplish-brown. The nest was placed on the ground, and was composed altogether of fine stems of grasses.

Plectrophanes ornatus, var. melanomus, BAIRD.

BLACK-SHOULDERED LONGSPUR.

Plectrophanes melanomus, BAIRD, Birds N. Am. 1858, 436, pl. lxxiv, f. 2.—HEERMANN, X, c, 13.

SP. CHAR. Bill yellowish, dark brown along the culmen. Male. Crown, a short stripe behind the eye, and a short crescent behind the ear-coverts, entire breast as far back as the thighs, and the lesser wing-coverts, black. The black on the breast margined with dark cinnamon. Sides of head, chin, throat, and region behind the black of the belly, white. A broad half-collar of dark cinnamon-brown on the back of the neck. Tail-feathers mostly white; the innermost tipped with dark brown; the white ending in an acute angle. Length, 5.30; wing, 3.40; tail, 2.60. (No. 6,290.)

HAB. Eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains, Mexico, on the table-lands, north to Upper Missouri. Orizaba (SCLATER, 1860, 251); San Antonio, Texas, spring (DRESSER, Ibis, 1865, 486); Fort Whipple, Arizona (COUES, P. A. N. S. 1866, 84); Vera Cruz, plateau, breeding (SUMICHRAST, I, 551).

As already stated, this bird is very similar to P. ornatus. It appears to be a very little larger, or, at any rate, with considerably longer wings. The bill, however, is shorter and stouter; the hind claw decidedly longer. The chestnut of the back of the neck is darker. The white on the outer web of the tertiaries and secondaries is much purer and wider. The rufous margins of the pectoral feathers we have never seen in P. ornatus. The most striking peculiarity, however, is in having the shoulders black, instead of brown like the rest of the wing-feathers, edged with paler. Both have the white posterior row of lesser wing-coverts.

An immature male (6,291) has the black of the head mixed with brown, and a maxillary series of spots on each side of the throat. A female has a similar series of spots; the under parts generally being brownish-white, the shafts across the breast and along the sides streaked with brown, the concealed portions of the feathers light brown, fading out to the whitish exterior. There is no black on the shoulder, nor chestnut on the nape.

Fully mature specimens of this bird and of ornatus are so rare in collections as to render it difficult to decide positively as to their true relationship. It is by no means impossible that they merely represent different conditions of plumage of one species, but for the present, at least, we prefer to consider them as distinct. The P. melanomus is resident on the table-lands of Mexico.

HABITS. Of the habits and general history of this species, very little is known. Its close resemblance to P. ornatus is suggestive of its probably equally close similarity in nesting, eggs, and manner of feeding. Specimens have been received from Mexico, from Fort Thorn, from New Mexico, Pole Creek, and the Black Hills. From the last-named places they were obtained in August and September.

Dr. Heermann, in his Report on the birds observed in Lieutenant Parke’s route near the 32d parallel, mentions having met with these birds, which he calls the Black-shouldered Longspur, at a large prairie-dog village some miles west of Puerto del Dado. They were in flocks, and were associated with P. maccowni. From that point to the Rio Grande he found both of these species abundant wherever they struck isolated water-holes, these being the only places for miles around where drink can be procured. When shot at, they rise as if to go away, but are forced to return, after describing a few curves, to the only spot where they can procure their necessary drink. They may thus be killed in great numbers. Dr. Heermann states that he has seen from a hundred to a hundred and fifty thus brought down in four or five discharges of a gun.

Mr. Dresser states that on the 4th of April a small flock of what was at first supposed to be the P. ornatus was noticed near the town of San Antonio. They were pursued, and found on the banks of the San Pedro. They were not very shy, and specimens were procured which proved to be of this species. This is the only time that they have been observed in that part of the country, though they may have been mistaken for other species.

Dr. Coues mentions the taking of a single specimen of this species, October 17, on the open grassy plains of Arizona.

This species is also given by Mr. Sumichrast as a resident throughout the year of the great plains of the plateau of Mexico. From them it occasionally descends to the distant intervals, as far as Orizaba, or at the elevation, above the gulf-level, of 1,220 metres.

Plectrophanes maccowni, LAWRENCE.

CHESTNUT-SHOULDERED LONGSPUR; MACCOWN’S BUNTING.

Plectrophanes maccowni, LAWRENCE, Ann. N. Y. Lyc. V, Sept. 1851, 122. Western Texas.—CASSIN, Illust. I, viii, 1855, 228, pl. xxxix.—HEERM. X, c, p. 13.—BAIRD, Birds N. Am. 1858, 437.

[Line drawing: Plectrophanes maccownii, Lawr. 6282 ♂]

SP. CHAR. Male in spring. Top of head, a broad stripe each side the throat from lower mandible, and a broad crescent on jugulum, black; side of head including lores and band above the eye, throat, and under parts, ashy-white; ear-coverts bordered above and behind by blackish, running out at the maxillary stripe. Breast just behind the black crescent and sides, showing dark bases of feathers. Upper parts ashy, tinged with yellowish on the mandible, and streaked with dusky; least so on nape and rump. Lesser wing-coverts ashy; median chestnut-brown, with blackish bases sometimes evident; the quills all bordered broadly externally with whitish, becoming more ashy on secondaries. Tail-feathers white except at the concealed bases and the ends, which have a transverse (not oblique) tip of blackish; the outermost white to the end; the two central like the back. Bill dark plumbeous; legs blackish. In winter the markings more or less obscured; the bill and legs more yellowish.

Female lacks the black markings, which, however, are indicated obsoletely as in other Plectrophanes; there is no trace of chestnut on the wings, no streaks on the breast. Length, 5.50; wing, 3.60; tail, 2.50; bill, .46.

HAB. Eastern slopes of Rocky Mountains, from Texas to Upper Missouri.

This species varies considerably in markings, but is readily recognized among other Plectrophanes in all stages by short hind toe, very stout bill, and the transverse dark bar at the end of all tail-feathers except the inner and outer.

HABITS. Maccown’s Lark Bunting is yet another of the various species of our birds whose history is very little known, and in regard to which the most we are able to state, at present, is that they appear in different parts of the interior plains of the United States, between the Rocky Mountains and the Missouri River and the lower tributaries of the Mississippi, extending from New Mexico and Texas northward, during the breeding-season, to the northern boundary of the United States. It was first discovered by Captain Maccown, who obtained it in Texas, where he found it in company with a flock of Shore Larks, and where it winters in considerable numbers. Mr. Dresser afterward met with it in small flocks, early in April, on the prairies near San Antonio. It was not very common, and he was only able to obtain two specimens during his stay in that section.

Dr. Heermann found this species congregated in large flocks, in company with the Black-shouldered Bunting. They were engaged in gleaning the seeds from the scanty grass, on the vast arid plains of New Mexico. Insects and berries formed also a part of their food; in search of these they showed great activity, running about with celerity and ease. In the spring, large flocks were seen at Fort Thorn, having migrated thither from the North the previous fall. With the return of mild weather they again departed for the North for the purposes of incubation. Among these large flocks Dr. Heermann noticed also the Shore Lark, but they formed only a small proportion of the whole number.

In a letter to Mr. Cassin, Dr. Heermann states that he found this species congregated with large numbers of other birds about the isolated water-holes in the barren plains of New Mexico.

Mr. J. A. Allen states (Am. Nat., May, 1872) that, during a few weeks’ stay near Fort Hays in midwinter, he found Maccown’s Longspur tolerably frequent in that vicinity.

An egg of this species, in the collection of the late Dr. Henry Bryant, measures .80 by .60 of an inch. Its ground-color is a light bluish clay-color, marbled, dotted, blotched, and lined with light neutral tints of lavender and darker markings of purplish and reddish brown. The nest was placed on the ground, and is composed entirely of coarse grass-stems (No. 3,521, J. Pearsall, Fort Benton).

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