FRINGILLIBjE: FINCHES, BUNTINGS, SPABROWS, ETC. 



339 



16. Family FRINGILLID^ : 



Finches, etc. 



Conirosfrnl Oscines with 

 9 primaries. — The largest 

 North American family, 

 c uiprLsing about one- 

 _ s(.\ciith (123: 888) of all 

 ^^ I ur birds, and the most 

 ( \terisive group of its 

 tci ide in ornithology. As 

 - ( I linarily constituted, it 



r( presents, in round num- 

 bds .500 current species 

 an 1 100 genera, of nearly 

 all parts of the world, ex- 

 cept Australia, but more 

 paiticularly of the northern 

 hcmispjhere and through- 

 out America, where the 

 group attains its maximum 



Fig 205 —European Gh^anch (i^r ii(7i»aca/eM) (After Dixon ) a\era£e attractiveness tO 



birds has a bird-fauna of over 200 species ; and if it be away from the sea-coast, and conse- 

 quently uninhabited by marine birds, about one-fourth of its species are Sylvicolida and 

 Fringillida together — the latter somewhat in excess of the former. It is not easy, therefore, 

 to give undue prominence to these two families. 



The Frinfjillidm are more particularly what used to be called " conirostral" birds, in dis- 

 tinction from " fissirostres," as the swallows, swifts, and goatsuckers, " tenuirostres," as hum- 

 ming-birds and creepers, and " dentirostres," as warblers, vireos, and most of the preceding 

 families. The bill approaches nearest the ideal cone, combining strength to crush seeds, with 

 delicacy of touch to secure minute objects. The cone is sometimes nearly expressed, but is 

 more frequently turgid or conoidal, convex in most directions or, again, so contracted that some 

 of its outlines are concave. The nostrils are always situated high up — nearer the culmen than 

 the cutting edge of the bill ; they are usually exposed, but in many, chiefly boreal, genera, the 

 base of the bill is furnislied with a ruff or two tufts of antrorse feathers more or less completely 

 covering the openings. The cutting edges of the biU may be slightly notched, but are usually 

 plain. There are usually a few inconspicuous bristles about the rictus, sometimes wanting, 

 sometimes highly developed, as in our grosbeaks. The wings are endlessly varied in shape, 

 but agree in possessing only nine developed primaries ; the tail is equally variable in form, but 

 always has twelve rectrices. The feet show a strictly Oscine or laminiplantar podotheca, 

 scutellate in front, covered on each side with an undivided plate, pi-oducing a sharp ridge 

 behind. None of these members offer extreme phases of developjment in any of our species. 



But the most tangible characteristic of the family is angulation of the commissure. The 

 commissure runs in a straight line, or with a slight curve, to or near to the base of the bill, and 

 is then more or less abruptly bent down at a varying angle — the cutting edge of the upper 

 mandible forming a reentrance, that of the lower mandible a con-esponding salience. In 

 fiiiniliar terms, we might say that the comers of the mouth are drawn down — that the Finches, 

 though very merry little birds, are literally " down in the mouth." In the great majority of 

 cases this feature is unmistakable, and in the grosbeaks, for example, it is very strongly marked 



