3 8 



THE PURPLE FINCH. 



No. 16. 



PURPLE FINCH. 



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. Female 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 

 (21.6 x 16.5). 



General Range. Eastern 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 verv much devoted to the 



