PAINTED BUNTING OR FINCH. 477 



The length of this species is from 5^ to 6 inches, and 7 to 8 in 

 alar dimensions. Above, the body is of a bright sky-blue, deepening 

 on the head and throat to an ultramarine ; the rest of the blue, by 

 reflection in certain lights, appears of a luminous verdigris-green. 

 Wings and tail dusky, the former edged with bluish-grey, the latter 

 with blue ; the tail forked, beneath presenting a pale silvery reflec- 

 tion; coverts of the wings black, broadly edged and tipt with blue, 

 lesser coverts blue and black at the base, lining of the wing blue, 

 near the body grey, only tinged with that color. Upper mandible 

 black, the lower paler towards the point, (in young birds pale horn- 

 color.) Legs and feet dusky. — Female of a flaxen color tinged with 

 pale ferruginous, the wings and tail dusky-brown, the latter edged 

 with greyish-blue. Cheeks and below pale ferruginous- white, darker 

 at the sides; about the rump, lower part of the back, and upper wing- 

 coverts tinged with pale bluish-green; the lower mandible very 

 pale. 



PAINTED BUNTING or FINCH. 



{Fringilla ciris, Temm. Audubon, pi. 53. Orn. Biog. i. p. 279. 

 Emberiza ciris, Wilson, iii. p. 68. pi. 24. fig. 1. [male] and fig. 

 2. [female]. Phil. Museum, No. 6062 and 6063.) 



Sp. Charact. — Vermilion-red; head and neck above purplish- 

 blue ; back yellowish-green ; wings dusky-red ; lesser coverts 

 purple ; the greater, and the tail, green. — Female and young 

 of the first season, green-olive; beneath Naples yellow. [The 

 young gradually change until the 4th or 5th year ?] 



This splendid, gay, and docile bird, known to the 

 Americans as the Nonpareil, and to the French Louisi- 

 anians as the Pape, inhabits the woods of the low 

 countries of the Southern States, in the vicinity of the 

 sea, and along the borders of the larger rivers, from North 

 Carolina to Mexico. They arrive from their tropical 

 quarters in Louisiana and Georgia from the middle to 

 the 20th of April. Impatient of cold, they retire to the 

 South early in October, and are supposed to winter about 

 Vera Cruz. For the sake of their song as well as beauty 

 of plumage, they are commonly domesticated in the 



