18 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. vol.64, 



crest on the inner side of the shaft lower and less prominent, with 

 the external face below distinctly rounded and the groove for the 

 peroneus 'profundus relatively narrower, less elevated. 



The specimen secured by Doctor Gidley is the oldest representative 

 of its genus at present known from North America. 



Family FRINGILLIDAE. 



JUNCO, species. 



The i^remaxilla of a small finch secured 2 miles south of Benson 

 agrees with that of the genus Junco^ and among modern groups of 

 snowbirds is closely similar to that of Junco hyemalis. From other 

 allied American finches of modern times it is distinguished by minute 

 differences in outline sufficient to separate it definitely. Fossil 

 passeriform birds have been reported seldom in North America, and 

 the present record, save for Palaeospiza hella Allen, whose f ringillid 

 affinity may be open to doubt, is the first account of a finch in the 

 Tertiary. 



Family FRINGILLIDAE (indeterminate). 



Among scant passerine remains are three fragments representing 

 finches that may not be identified save to family, tantalizing glimpses 

 of ancient birds of this group that give mere suggestions of species 

 concerning whose appearance we may only speculate. The distal 

 end of an ulna, found 2 miles south of Benson, comes from a bird 

 the size of a white-crowned sparrow. Another ulna, even more 

 broken, of similar size, was secured at the site 14 miles southeast 

 of Benson, and with it the proximal end of a left tibia that is almost 

 identical with that of Zonotrichia leucophrys^ both in size and in 

 detail of structure. All of these bits represent species belonging in 

 the group that Mr. Ridgway ® has designated as the Zonotrichiae. 



Another broken ulna (secured 2 miles south of Benson) from a 

 bird nearly as large and robust as a meadow lark is from a finch of 

 another group. 



« Birds North and Middle America, vol. 1, 1901, p. 28. 



