38 "THE PURPLE FINCH. 
No. 16. 
PUREE NCH: 
A. O. U. No. 517. Carpodacus purpureus (Gmel.). 
Description.—Adult male: Dull crimson, or deep rosy red, with a slight 
purplish tinge, brightest on front, breast, and rump, whitening below; wings and 
tail fuscous with rosy edgings. Area of rosy suffusion reduced in fall and win- 
ter specimens. /emale quite different; ground color, gray or flaxen, everywhere 
spotted and streaked with olive-brown (the color-bearing feathers are really 
dusky and heavily edged with olive), in sharply defined streaks and arrow-head 
marks below, above minutely streaked or nearly uniform; a space in lower throat 
and belly nearly clear; wings fuscous, edged with olive, not rosy. Young like 
female, but males pass through a bronzy stage. Length 6.00-6.25 (152.4-158.8) ; 
wing 3.21 (81.5); tail 2.23 (56.6); bill along culmen .45 (11.4); depth at base 
.34 (8:6). Females slightly smaller. 
Recognition Marks.—Sparrow size; rosy coloration of male, olive streaki- 
ness of female. The female bears a superficial resemblance to the Pine Siskin, 
but the latter is a smaller and yellower bird, with a very much smaller bill. 
Nest, composed of weed stalks, grasses, rootlets, etc., lined with soft sub- 
stances and hair; placed at moderate heights in trees, preferably evergreens, and 
oftenest on horizontal boughs. Eggs, 4 or 5, dull green, spotted and speckled and 
streaked (or not) with dark brown, chiefly near larger end. Av. size, .85 x .65 
(26 16:5) 
General Range.—E astern North America, from the Atlantic Coast to the 
Plains. Breeds from Middle States northward. 
Range in Ohio.—Spring and fall migrant; of casual occurrence in winter. 
Formerly a few remained to breed in the northern portion. 
HERE comes another band of jolly rovers who have seen sights in the 
Laurentian highlands, no doubt, or possibly in dismal Labrador, but who are 
quite content for the nonce to while away the time among the unrifled cones of 
the evergreen windbreak, or in making an early raid upon the ungarnered 
crop of rag-weed seed. ‘The migrating instinct urges them southward with only 
indifferent success. They may be gone tomorrow or they may conclude to 
spend the winter with you. At any rate they are here now and that is reason 
enough for pleasant chatter and fragments of remembered song. 
One observer would give “its very characteristic utterance” as ‘“‘a short, 
rather dull-sounding note, scarcely metallic—the metal pressed the instant the 
bell is struck”; while another, more generous, or perhaps more enthusiastic, 
would give it credit for “a musical metallic chink, chink.” 
Those birds which have not wintered with us straggle back through March 
and April, and linger sometimes into May. At this season they are oftener 
found in the heart of the woods along streams, feeding upon the buds of the 
slippery elm. A company of them may seem at a time very much devoted to the 
