28 BRITISH BIRDS. 
Subfamily FRINGILLIN&, or FINCHES. 
The Finches form a large group of birds, which may at once be distin- 
euished from all the other subfamilies of the Passeride by their combina- 
tion of a stout conical bill with the entire absence of a first primary. The 
wings are long and pointed, the second, third, and fourth primaries being 
nearly equal in length. The tarsus is short and scutellated in front, but 
not at the back. 
The Finches only moult once in the year, in autumn. The spring 
plumage, where it differs from that of autumn, is attained by casting the 
ends of the feathers and the small, so to speak, pmnules of the leaflets or 
pinnz, and sometimes by a simultaneous increase of brilliancy im the 
colour of the feather itself. The plumage of the young is more spotted 
and streaked than that of adults, but is moulted in the first autumn. 
The Fringilline are almost cosmopolitan, beg found throughout the 
world except in the Australian Region, where they are represented by the 
Weaver-birds (Ploceine), which are also found throughout the tropical 
regions of the Old World. There are upwards of 500 species of Finches, 
which have been divided by ornithologists into upwards of seventy genera. 
The characters of most of these are, however, of such a trivial nature 
that to retain many of them, even as a matter of courtesy to their founders, 
would only bring the science of ornithology into contempt. In the present 
neglected state of this group of birds it is impossible to form any key to 
the genera. Sixty species of Finches are found in Europe, of which half 
are included in the British list. 
Genus LOXIA. 
The genus Lovia is recognized by Linnzus in the twelfth edition of his 
‘Systema Nature,’ i. p. 299, and consequently dates from 1766. The 
Common Crossbill (L. eurvirostra) has by common consent been accepted as 
the type. It is the Lowia loxia of Brisson, and the first species named by 
Linneeus, though the Hawfinch, the Grosbeak, the Bullfinch, and other 
more distantly allied birds are included in the same genus. 
