FRINGILLID^ — THE FINCHES. 39 



distinct blackish shaft-stripe, throwing off narrow, obsolete bars toward 

 the edge of the feathers. Outer tail-feathers distinctly tipped (broadly) 

 and edged with dull white. Black marks on upper tail-coverts very 

 large, transverse. Beneath nearly uniform dull white, scarcely darker 

 along sides and across breast ; flanks with broad streaks of blackish- 

 brown. Wing, 2.55 ; tail, 2.80 ; bill, .28 and .23 ; tarsus, .68 ; middle 

 toe, .55. Hab. Rio Grande, region (San Antonio and Laredo), north 

 to Kansas (Allen). 



Peucsea aestivalis, Cabanis. 



BACHMAN'S SPARROW. 



Fringilla cestivalis, Light. Verz. Doubl. 1823, 25, No. 254. — Bonap. Conspectus, 1850, 

 481. Peuccea aestivalis, Cabanis, Mus. Hein. 1850, 132. — Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 

 484. Fringilla bachviani, AuD. Orn. Biog. II, 1834, 366, pi. clxv, Ammodromus 

 bachmani, Bon. List, 1838. Peucaia bachmani, AuD. Syn. 1839. — Ib. Birds Am. IH, 

 1841, 113, pi. clxxvi. — BoN. Consp. 1850, 481 (type). Fringilla cestiva, Nutt. I, (2d 

 ed.,) 1840, 568. '■'■ Summer finch, Latham, Synopsis, (2ded.,) VI, 136." Nuttall. 



Sp. Char. All the feathers of the upper parts rather dark brownish-red or chestnut, 

 margined with bluish-ash, which almost 

 forms a median stripe on the crown. Inter- 

 scapular region and upper tail-coverts with 

 the feathers becoming black in the centre. 

 An indistinct ashy superciliary stripe. Under 

 parts pale yellow-brownish, tinged with 

 ashy on the sides, and with darker brownish 

 across the upper part of the breast. A faint 

 maxillary dusky line. Indistinct streaks of 

 chestnut along the sides. Edge of wing 

 yellow ; lesser coverts tinged with greenish. 

 Innermost secondaries abruptly margined 

 with narrow whitish. Legs yellow. Bill 



,, . , , 1 /^ -1 PeurcFa astivalis, 



above dusky, yellowish beneath. Outer tail- 

 feathers obsoletely marked with a long blotch of paler at end. Female considerably 

 smaller. Young with rounded dusky specks on the jugulum, which is more ochraceous. 

 Length, 6.25 ; wing, 2.30 ; tail, 2.78. 



Hab. Georgia ; Florida ; South Illinois, breeding (Ridgway). (Perhaps whole of 

 Southern States from Florida to South Illinois.) 



Specimens from Southern Illinois (Wabash Co., July, 1871 ; coll. of R. 

 Eidgway) are similar to Florida examples. 



Habits. Bachman's Finch has only been known, until very recently, as 

 a species of a very restricted range, and confined within the limits of the 

 States of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. Our principal, and for some 

 time our only, knowledge of its habits was derived from the account fur- 

 nished by Eev. Dr. Bachman to Mr. Audubon. That observing naturalist first 

 met with it in the month of April, 1832, near Parker's Ferry, on the Edisto 

 Eiver, in South Carolina. Dr. Henry Bryant afterwards met with this 

 species at Indian Eiver, in Florida, where he obtained specimens of its nests 



