FRINGILLID.E: FINCHES, BUNTINGS, SPARROWS. 373 



Family FRINGILLID^ : Finches, etc. 



Conirostral Oscines with 9 primaries. — The largest North American family, comprising 

 about one-seventh of all our birds, and the most extensive group of its grade in ornithology. 

 As ordinarily constituted, it represents, in round numbers, 600 current species and 100 genera, 

 of nearly all parts of the world, except Australia, but more particularly of the northern hemi- 

 sphere and throughout America, where the group attains its maximum development. Any one 

 United States locality of average attractiveness to birds has a bird-fauna of over 200 species ; 

 and if it be away from the sea-coast, and consequently uninhabited by marine birds, about one- 

 fourth of its species are MniotiltidcB and Fringillidce together — the latter somewhat in excess 

 of the former. It is not easy, therefore, to give undue prominence to these two families. 



The Fringillidce are more particularly what used to be called " Conirostral " birds, in dis- 

 tinction from " Fissirostres," as the Swallows, Swifts, and Goatsuckers ; " Tenuirostres," as Hum- 

 ming-birds and Creepers ; and " Deutirostres," as Warblers, Vireos, and most of the preceding 

 families. The bill approaches nearest the ideal cone, combining strength to crush seeds with 

 delicacy of touch to secure minute objects. The cone is sometimes nearly expressed, but is 

 more frequently turgid or conoidal, convex in most directions or, again, so contracted that some 

 of its outlines are concave. The nostrils are always situated high up — nearer culmen than 

 cutting edge of bill ; they are usually exposed, but in many, chiefly boreal, genera, the base of 

 the bill is furnished with a ruff or two tufts of antrorse feathers more or less completely cover- 

 ing the openings. The cutting edges of the bill may be slightly notched, but are usually plain. 

 There are usually a few inconspicuous bristles about the rictus, sometimes wanting, sometimes 

 highly developed, as in our Grosbeaks. The wings are endlessly varied in shape, but agree in 

 possessing only 9 developed primaries; the tail is equally variable in form, but always has 12 

 rectrices. The feet show a strictly Oscine or laminiplantar podotheca, scutellate in front, cov- 

 ered on each side with an undivided plate, producing a sharp ridge behind. None of these 

 members offer extreme phases of development in any of our species. 



But the most tangible characteristic of the family is angulation of the commissure. The 

 commissure runs in a straight line, or with a slight curve, to or near to the base of the bill, and 

 is then more or less abruptly bent down at a varying angle — the cutting edge of the upper 

 mandible forming a re-entrance, that of the lower mandible a corresponding salience. In 

 familiar terms, we might say that the corners of the mouth are drawn duwn — that the Finches, 

 though very merry little birds, are literally " down in the mouth." In most cases this feature 

 is unmistakable, and in the Grosbeaks, for example, it is very strongly marked indeed; but in 

 some of the smaller-billed forms, and especially those with slender bill, it is hardly perceptible. 

 On the whole, however, it is a good character, and at any rate it is the most reliable external 

 feature that can be found. It separates our fringilline birds pretty trenchantly from other 

 9-primaried Oscines except Icteridcc, and most of these may be distinguished by the characters 

 given beyond. 



Taking their characters all together, Fringillidce may be defined as 9-primaried, coniros- 

 tral, laminiplantar, oscine Pa.sseres with axis of bill at an angle with that of skull, and nostrils 

 nearer culmen than cutting edge of bill. 



When we come, however, to consider this great group of conirostral Oscines in its entirety, 

 as compared with bordering families like the Old World Ploceidce, or the Icteridce, and espe- 

 cially the Tanagridfc, of the New, tlie difficulty, if not tlie impossibility, of framing a perfect 

 diagnosis bec(jmes apparent, and I am not aware tliat any attempts at rigid definition have 

 proven successful. Ornitliologists are nearly agreed what birds to call fringilline, witliout being 

 so well pn^pared to say what " fringilline " means. Tlie subdivisions of the family, as might 

 be expected, are still conventional, and varying with every leading writer. Our species might 

 be thrown into several groups, but the distinctions would be more or less arbitrary and not 



