GROSBEAKS. 547 



with a wide and broadly arched palate (Amplipalatales), and those with the narrower 

 and scarcely arched palate (Arctipalatales). In the latter are comprised the forms 

 which we regard as the most specialized forms, chiefly American. In this division 

 we find all our North American sparrows, Ammodromus, Zonotrichia, Spizetta, 

 Melospiza, feuccea, J'unco, etc., etc., also the Pitylinse, including the cardinal 

 (Cardinalis cardinalis) and the rose-breasted grosbeak (Ildbia, ludoviciana) figured 

 in the cut on the plate facing page 544. Closely allied to the foregoing American 

 forms, which make up the bulk of the phalanx, are the Old World Emberizinae or 

 buntings, of which two representatives are illustrated in our next cut, viz., the ortolan 

 (Emberiza, hortuiana), the bird to whom this name by right belongs, a common Euro- 

 pean species, which during the autumnal migrations is caught in great numbers for 

 the table, the other being the black-headed bunting (Granativora melanocephala), a 

 large and handsome species, intensely yellow beneath, and confined to the Mediterra- 

 nean subregion from Italy eastward, migrating to India in winter. 



The Amplipalatales are mostly Old World birds and contain the typical finches. 

 In North America, however, we have a number of species belonging to many different 

 genera, for instance, Carporacus, Acanthis, Leucosticte, etc., but no true finches 

 occur in South America with the exception of several goldfinches (Spinus), a genus 

 strictly arctogrean, but with a distribution somewhat analogous to that of the 

 American kingfishers. Two types of this ' phalanx ' are illustrated in this volume, 

 both very familiar indeed to our readers, but in a somewhat disagreeable way, for the 

 lower figure of the accompanying cut represents, needless to say, a bird whose phe- 

 nomenal increase, after having been idiotically introduced into this country, has 

 given rise to considerable talk, but, alas! as yet only little action; while the wild 

 stock of our domesticated canary, yellow and olive, is figured in the plate facing 

 page 544. 



As remarked at the beginning of the Passeroideae, we regard the true grosbeaks 

 as the highest specialized finches, represented in Europe by the haw-finch (Cocco- 

 thraustes coccothraustes), and in this continent by the evening grosbeak (Sesperiphona 

 vespertinci). Their bills are enormously thick, heavy, and so high that their upper 

 contours almost form one continuous curve with that of the head. 



LEOXHARD STEJXEGER. 



