126 FRINGILLIDZ, FINCHES, ETC. 
bird at all. The highest authority on this genus, Messrs. Dresser and Sharpe, have 
shown from examination of Swainson’s type specimen, that his elegans is the 
C. lahtora, a widely-spread Asiatic species probably erroneously attributed to North 
America. 
Family FRINGILLIDA. Finches, etc. 
The largest North American family, comprising between one-seventh and one- 
eighth of all our birds, and the most extensive group of its grade in ornithology. 
As ordinarily constituted, it represents, in round numbers, five hundred current 
species and one hundred genera, of nearly all parts of the world, except Australia, 
but more particularly of the northern hemisphere 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 two hundred species; and if it be away from the sea-coast, and con- 
sequently uninhabited by marine birds, about one-fourth of its species are Sylvico- 
lide and Fringillide together—the latter somewhat in excess of the former. It is 
not easy, therefore, to give undue prominence to these two families. 
The Fringillide are more particularly what used to be called ‘‘ conirostral” birds, 
in distinction from ‘ fissirostres,’ as the swallows, swifts and goatsuckers, ‘ten- 
uirostres,” as humming birds and creepers, and ‘‘ dentirostres,” 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, and sometimes so contracted that some of its outlines 
are concave. The nostrils 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 covering the openings. The cutting edges 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 nine 
developed primaries; the tail is equally variable in form, but always has twelve 
rectrices. The feet show a strictly Oscine podotheca, scutellate in front, covered 
on the side with an undivided plate, producing a sharp ridge behind. None of 
these members offer extreme phases of development or arrestation, in any of our 
species. 
But the most tangible characteristic of the family is angulation of the commis- 
sure. 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 reéntrance, that of the 
lower mandible a corresponding salience. In the great majority of cases the fea- 
ture 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 Oscines except Jcteridw, and most of 
these may be distinguished by the characters given beyond. 
When we come, however, to consider this great group of conirostral Oscines in 
its entirety, as compared with bordering families like the Old World Ploceide, or 
the Icteridw, and especially the Tanagride, of the New, the difficulty if not the 
impossibility of framing a perfect diagnosis becomes apparent, and I am not 
se 
—— 
- ceatieeteee aiid ee 
— ee nw cae 
= 
eS ge te OE Sa 
