CASSIN'S BULLFINCH 257 



Ludwig Kumlein (1879) believed he saw a bullfinch in Cumberland 

 Sound July 19, 1879, but he was unable to collect it for verification. 

 Hence the occurrence of the species in North America was based solely 

 on Dall's type specimen until October 1927, when Cyril Guy Harrold, 

 collecting for the California Academy of Sciences, encountered four 

 bullfinches, of which he was able to collect three, on Nunivak Island 

 in the Bering Sea off Alaska, This discovery led Swarth (1934) to 

 suggest: "The number of individuals observed takes the species out 

 of the 'accidental visitant' category, and it wdl probably be found to 

 be of fairly regular occurrence in Alaska at certain seasons and at 

 favored localities." As the bird life of northwestern Alaska and the 

 islands in the Bering Sea still has not been investigated as intensively 

 as one might wish, Swarth's hypothesis is plausible, especially as the 

 bird is a strong flier, and breeds fairly close by in Kamchatka and 

 possibly in the Anadyr region. But only one more Alaskan specimen 

 has been taken since then, an "unsexed bird, adult male by plumage," 

 collected on St. Lawrence Island in May 1936 by an Eskimo collector, 

 Paul Silook, who Friedmann (1937) reports "recognized it as a new 

 bird in his experience as he wrote on the label '* * * unusual kind and 

 killed very first time. * * * ' " Hence, although Alaska is its type 

 locality, inasmuch as it has been taken only three times within 

 Check-List territory, Cassin's bullfinch must stUl be regarded from 

 the available evidence as a straggler in North America. 



Bullfinches imported from Europe have been released frequently 

 in North America but have never become established here. According 

 to Philhps (1928): 



"The European bullfinch has doubtless been liberated in many places 

 and at many different times — certainly at Cincinnati early in the 

 [eighteen] seventies and at Portland, Oregon, in 1889-1892 (at least 20 

 pairs), as well as in Cahfornia, in 1891. There is no evidence of any 

 attempt on the part of the birds to establish themselves." 



The bullfinches are a distinct and well-marked genus of palearctic 

 fringiUids, of which the northernmost representative, Pyrrhula pyrrhula, 

 breeding across northern Europe and Asia from the British Isles to 

 Kamchatka, is the most widely distributed and the best known. The 

 species is comparatively plastic, and seems to be in the process of 

 rather rapid revolutionary development, especially in eastern Asia, 

 where the status of its various recognized forms is stiU somewhat in 

 doubt. In fact the identity of P. p. cassinii was uncertain untU 

 comparatively recently. 



When it became apparent that no buUfiQches occur regularly in 

 Alaska or the contiguous islands in the Bering Sea, subsequent revisers 

 of the group were faced with the problem of assigning Baird's prior 

 name to one of the Asiatic races. The problem was complicated by the 



