BIRDS OF NEW YORK 25 1 



their propensity for eating eggs and killing young birds, and I have no 

 doubt that this is true, but unfortunately many experiences like the one 

 above recorded have taught me to keep watch on all the grackles wherever 

 I have any regard for the welfare of the other birds nesting in their vicinity. 



Family FRINOILLIDAE 



Finches, Sparrows etc. 



Wing variable in shape, containing only g primaries; tail also variable 

 in shape, containing 12 rectrices; bill conical, the cutting edges usually 

 plain, distinguishing them from tanagers; the commissure bent more or 

 less abruptly down near the base, a characteristic which they share with 

 the Icteridae; nostrils high up, bare in some species, covered with dense 

 tufts of bristles in others; tarsus scutellate in front, plated on the side, 

 with a sharp ridge behind like the characteristic passerine tarsus; in size 

 they range from small to medium; plumage very variable, from almost 

 plain to highly variegated. 



The family is granivorous in diet, although they all feed to a con- 

 siderable extent on insects, especially in the summer time and when rear- 

 ing the young. As a family they are highly melodious, including some of 

 our finest musicians, like the grosbeaks and Purple finch. The family 

 is almost cosmopolitan in distribution, numbering over 600 species. In 

 this country, as in many others, it is likewise the largest of all the families 

 of passerine birds. As would be expected from the variability of the wing 

 and tail, as well as the details in the shape of the bill and in the coloration, 

 several sections of the family are popularly recognized, such as the linnets, 

 represented by our Redpoll, the grosbeaks, finches, buntings and sparrows. 

 These groups merge into each other by such insensible degrees, however, 

 that no division into subfamilies is recognized by the A. O. U. 



The economic value of our native sparrows as destroyers of insects 

 and weed seeds is clearly shown by Sylvester D. Judd, Bulletins 15 and 

 17, Biological Survey, United States Department of Agriculture. 



