OF THE UNITED STATES 335 



sonia, the form now called, in the A. O. U. Check-List, the Slate- 

 colored junco (Junco hyemaUs), to which genus has since been 

 added no less than seven additional species and seven subspe- 

 cies. Many of the modern genera of the family Fringillidce were 

 totally unknown to Wilson as, for example, Leucosticte, Rhyncho- 

 phanes, Chondestes, Amphispiza, Euetheia, and Calamospim, and 

 of course the forms that represent them. 



In slimming up, then, it will be seen that Wilson knew of but 

 thirty species of birds that belong to the family Fringillidce, 

 while in our Check-List of 1895 the same family is represented by 

 no fewer than eighty-nine species and seventy-four subspecies 

 163 birds in all. A large part of this augmentation has been 

 due to the activity of modern ornithologists collecting west of 

 the Mississippi river, over areas which, to Wilson, were totally 

 unknown. 



In other lands than the United States, the fringilline or finch- 

 group includes an enormous number of specific and subspecific 

 forms, famous among these we find the Weaver-birds of Africa; 

 the European Haw-finch or Common Grosbeak of Europe; the 

 Common Sparrow, which has been so successfully introduced 

 into this country; the foreign Linnets, the Common Goldfinch of 

 Europe, the Canary, the European Ortalan, the Bullfinch, the 

 Java Sparrow, and a perfect host of others. 



As stated above, I shall now give a brief account of the species 

 of crossbills found in this country. These birds average about 

 the size of an English sparrow (Passer domesticus), but they pre- 

 sent a character no less unique than the crossing of their bills, 

 a feature not at present known to exist in any other species of 

 the entire class Aves. Both the upper and lower bills are subcres- 

 centic in form, the margins being sharp, and the apices ex- 

 tremely acute. Passing from base to apex, the lower bill is grad- 

 ually curved to one side, the upper mandible having a correspond- 

 ing curve to the opposite side, and both present a decided curva- 

 ture of their own. This arrangement admits of the mandibles 

 crossing each other near their middle thirds, and in this crossing 

 the point of the lower jaw turns out to the right side. I have met 

 with about one specimen in fifteen where the crossing takes place 

 in the other direction. The peculiar conformation of the beak 

 of these birds is not confined only to their horny sheaths, but 

 the asymmetry is still more profound, being entered into by the 

 osseous mandibles of the skull, while certain muscles of the head. 



