on the Yellowish Finch.



ioi



is that it is practically impossible for two independent workers to

be absolutely agreed as to the exact length of a living bird, when

they only have skins to measure from ; the measurements of the

culmen, wing, tail and tarsus might easily correspond because

they are fixed in the fully adult bird, but stretching or shrinkage

must affect the total length of a skin. Undoubtedly age greatly

affects not only the size but the colouring of many species; and

I am satisfied that if a series of Saffron-finches (S. flaveola) were

to be killed when one, two, three, and four years of age, they

would make four as pretty distinct-looking subspecies as any of

those ascribed to S. arvejisis; whether they would show such

differences in the outer tail-feathers as characterize chrysops

when compared with S. arve?isis I cannot say; but in other

respects there would be abundant distinctive characters. For

this reason, I should regard with some suspicion the constancy

to locality of any forms nearly related to an abundant species of

Sycalis, with the knowledge that another species in the same

genus differed at various ages in quite as marked a manner : in

this I might err, but with some excuse for doing so. Inasmuch

as S. aiwe?isis is a placid, slender bird, with a pleasing fluttering

action on the wing; whereas S.flaveola is a tempestuous thick¬

set bird, with a headlong direct flight, I should not consider the

two nearly related ; this again is evidenced by their different

methods of nidification; so that one species may have local

variations, and the other only changes of plumage regulated by

age ; only these facts, if they exist, need to be established.


I hope that I may now have both sexes of this pretty little

species; and that, in the coming year, I may be fortunate

enough to learn something from personal experience of its

life-history.



