:::::::::^v two BIRD- LOVERS IN MEXICO >»::::::::: 



breast, and white-tipped tail of this bird make it easy 

 to know at sight. It has not the trace of a crest, yet 

 a habit of often raising the feathers on its head would 

 certainly lead a casual observer to credit the bird wdth 

 such an ornament. 



No lover of birds need be ashamed of the exclama- 

 tion "Purple Finches!" which he would be sure to 

 utter at first sight of the large flocks of birds in the 

 fields, and often in the very streets of Guadalajara. 

 They are House Finches, and although belonging to 

 the same genus and very like in plumage to the pui^- 

 'purexis of our Northern cedars, yet they are radically 

 different in habits. Like the Bob-Whites and certain 

 other birds, the House Finches of Mexico are split up 

 geographically into eight or nine races, and the sub- 

 species inhabiting this region is designated the Cuer- 

 navaca House Finch. They are the English Sparrows 

 of Guadalajara, and they are indeed a vast improve- 

 ment on that interloper. Their delightful colouring 

 and sweet, warbling song, uttered often from the dusty 

 streets, made us realize all the more forcibly the total 

 lack of charm of Passer domestlcus. Sometimes about 

 sunset fifty or a hundred of these House Finches in 

 all stages of colouring — from brown through parti- 

 coloured hues to pink or deep rose — would rise from 

 the fields and pass with a slow, fluttering flight over 

 our heads westward, all singing their sweetest. It was 

 a most unexpected pleasure, repeated again and again. 



<■:*• 46 ^ 



