FRINGILLIBM: FINCHES, BUNTINGS, SPAIillOWS, ETC. 



369 



79. 



MELOSPI'ZA. (Gr. jiikos, melos, song, melody, aud cmlCa, spiza, name of some Finch iu Aris- 

 totle). SuXfi Sparrows. Bill moderate, conic, without special tm-gidity or compression, dut- 

 lines of culmen, commissure, gonys and sides nearly or ahout straight. Wings short and much 

 rounded, folding little beyond base of tail ; 1st primary quite short ; point of wing formed by od, 

 4th, and .5th, supported closely by 2d and 6th; inner secondaries not elongated. Tail long, 

 about equalling or rather exceeding the wings, much rounded, with firm featliers broad to their 

 rounded ends. Feet moderately stout; tarsus scarcely or not Ljnger than middle toe and claw ; 

 lateral toes slightly unequal, outer the longer, its claw scarcely or not reaching base (jf middle 

 claw. Embracing a large number of middle-sized and large sparrows, witlujut a trace of yellow 

 anywhere, and of brownish-yeUow only in M. Uncolnij upper parts, including crown, thickly 

 streaked ; under parts white or ashy, thickly streaked across breast and along sides (excepting 

 adult 31. pahistris). No bright color anywhere, and no colors in masses. The type of the genus 

 is the familiar and beloved song spaiTow, — a 

 bird of constant characters in the East, but which 

 in the West is split into numerous geographical 

 races, some of them looking so different from 

 typical faseiata that they have been considered 

 as distinct species, and even placed in other gen- 

 era. This differentiation affects not only the 

 color, liut the size, relative proportion of parts, 

 and particularly the shape of the bill; and it is 

 sometimes so great, as in case of M. cinerea, that 

 less dissimilar-looking birds are commonly as- 

 signed to different genera. Nevertheless, the 

 gradation is complete, and effected by impercep- 

 tible degrees. Some Northwestern forms of 

 great size and dark colors are easily discrimi- 

 nated, but there are U. S. birds from Atlantic to 

 Pacific which are not readily told apart. The 

 student should not be discouraged if a subject 

 which has tried the chiefs perplexes him ; nor must he expect to find drawn rm paper hard and 

 fast lines which do not exist in nature. The curt antithetical expressions iised in constructing 

 the analysis of species and varieties necessarily exaggerate the case, and are only true as indi- 

 cating the typical style of each ; plenty of specimens lie " between the lines" as written. In 

 going over a large series of Western song sparrows — specimens picked to illustrate types of 

 style rather than connecting links, it still seems to me that distinctions have been somewhat 

 forced ; and that, also, difi'erent degrees of variation are thrown out of proper perspective by 

 reducing all the forms to the same varietal plane. Thus, the differences between cinerea 

 and all the rest, or between riifina and faseiata, are much greater than between rvfina and 

 guttata for instance, or between falktx and faseiata. In any outline of the genus the curves and 

 angles indicated by Baird in 1858 are as far as they go nicer qualifications than the dead-level 

 varieties later in vogue. The several degrees of likeness and unlikeness may be thrown 

 into true relief better by some such expressions as the following than by formal antithetical 

 phrases : — 1. The common eastern bird slightly modified in the arid interior into the duller 

 colored 2. fallax. This, in the Pacific water shed, more decidedly modified by deeper 

 coloration, — broader black streaks in 3. heermanni, with its diminutive local race 1. samuelis, 

 and more ruddy shades in 5. guttata northward increasing in intensity, with increased size, 

 in 6. riifina. Then the remarkable 7. cinerea, insulated much further apart than any of 

 the others. A former American schotd would probably have made four ''good species." 

 1. faseiata; 2. samuelis; 3. rufina; 4. cinerea. The present British school might perhaps 



24 



Fig. 2.32. — Lincoln's 

 (Sheppard del. Nicliols sc. ) 



Song-Sparrow reduced. 



