258 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 23 7 part i 



absence of adequate material for comparison, and by the fact that 

 Baird's description of cassinii, based supposedly on a male specimen, 

 called for a grayish bird with no red on the underparts. (The species 

 exhibits considerable, though racially variable, sexual dimorphism, 

 the males of most subspecies having reddish underparts which the 

 femaleslack.) Stejneger (in Turner, 1886) was the first to realize that the 

 type specimen was improperly sexed and was doubtless an immatm-e 

 female, but he assigned the name (1887) nevertheless to the grayest of 

 the known bullfinch races, a south-central Siberian form in which the 

 male shows no red or pink whatever, and which is now known correctly 

 as P. p. dneracea. 



The great Enghsh systematist, R. B. Sharpe (1888), suspected the 

 correct identity of Baird's type, and suggested that it might be found 

 identical with the nearest race geographically, then known as kamt- 

 schatica, the male of which is one of the reddest and handsomest of all 

 the buUfmches. But Stejneger's arguments prevailed, and the name 

 cassinii remained misapplied to the more distant bird until Harrold 

 collected the Nunivak specimens. When Swarth (1928) compared 

 these with the type of cassinii, and with additional Kamchatkan 

 material and specimens from south-central Siberia, he was able to 

 determine beyond question that Baird's name is applicable indeed to 

 the Kamchatkan race, as Professor Sharpe had predicted 40 years 

 earher, and which is only logical on the basis of geographical proximity. 



Probably less is known at first hand of the life history of Cassin's 

 bullfinch than of any other form covered by this series. The available 

 literature is singularly lacking in authoritative observations on its 

 habits, behavior, and actions in the field. Its normal habitat has been 

 visited by very few ornithologists, and none of these has had oppor- 

 tunity to do more than collect a few specimens. The few stragglers 

 taken beyond the periphery of its usual range have added httle to our 

 knowledge of this interesting bird. 



Hence we can only build an approximate picture of its life history 

 by borrowing information on its various aspects from our knowledge 

 of its better-known relatives. This is an unsatisfactory and un- 

 scientific procedure at best, and a particularly inexact one in so plas- 

 tic, variable, and unsettled a group as the bullfinches. Closely allied 

 subspecies vary but little in their general behavior, but nunor distinc- 

 tions in voice and habits have been noted between some races by 

 keen observers. Such differences are probably heritable, and as 

 such can be just as diagnostic of subspecies as the color and size 

 characters by which they are distinguished. It must be realized, 

 therefor, that observations on the habits of P. p. pyrrhula, nesa, 

 griseiventris, and rosacea, the best-known races, while perhaps typical 



