A MONOGRAPH OF THE GENUS LEUCOSTICTE, SWAINSON; OR, 

 GRAY-CROWNED PURPLE FINCHES. 



By Robert Ridgway. 



INTEODUCTIOX. 



The genus Leucosticte is composed of sparrow-like birds, characterized 

 by terrestrial habits, rosy tints to the plumage of the posterior portions 

 of the body, and a fondness for the cold climate of high latitudes or 

 alpine elevations. Its distribution within the United States is exclusively 

 Trt^estern ; none of the species occurring eastward of the base of the Eocky 

 Mountains, while one of them occurs, in winter, thence to the Pacific 

 coast. The Eocky Mountain region is their center of abundance ; for, 

 of the three species known in North America, two occur only there j the 

 third mingles with these during its migrations, but is a species of very 

 wide distribution. 



It happened that, in the course of his western explorations, Dr. Hay- 

 den frequently met with these birds, being the first to secure a consid- 

 erable number of specimens of the then only known, and very rare, spe- 

 ■cies ; Awhile to him is also due the honor of making the discovery of one 

 ■entirely new to science. 



HISTORY. 



The first species of this genus was described in 1831 by Swainson and 

 Eichardson in their ^^ Fauna BoreaU-A^nericana^^ (vol. 2, i^p. 265-266), 

 from " a specimen killed on the Saskatchewan, May, 1827." It was 

 named " Linaria (Leucosticte) tephrocotis Swains. — Gray-crowned Lin- 

 net," and tolerably well figured in plate 50, facing page 365. This figure 

 represents the summer-plumage, with black bill. Swainson's second 

 notice of the species (Birds, II, 1837), Audubon's figures and descriptions 

 in his several works, and Bonaparte's diagnoses in " Conspectus Oenenim 

 J.vmw,"etc., were all based upon the same specimen, which, for nearly 

 a quarter of a century, remained the unique representative of the genus. 

 It was not until the year 1850 that the second specimen of L. tephrocotis 

 was secured ; the fortunate finder being Captain Stansbury, who, on 

 March 21, 1850, obtained a fine specimen at Salt Lake City, Utah (see 

 " Stansbury's Salt Lake," Appendix C, by S. F. Baird, p. 317). This may 

 have been the first specimen obtained in the United States ; but in the 

 National Collection are two very imperfect examples, accredited to Col- 

 onel Fremont, but without dates on the labels, on which are recorded as 

 additional data merely the locality, " Eocky Mountains." One of these 

 specimens is var. tephrocotis, and the other var. littoralis. 



In the mean time, at about the same date as that when Swainson's speci- 

 men was described, a second form (L. tephrocotis var. griseinucha) was 

 •discovered in Eussian America, and described by Pallas, in " Zoographia 

 Hosso-Asiatica''^ (II, 1831, p. 23), as Passer arctoa var. y. It first received 

 its distinctive name in 1841, when Dr. J. F. Brandt named it Fringilla 



