126 FltlNGILLIDiE, FINCHES, ETC. 



bird at all. The highest authority on this genus, Messrs. Dresser and Sharpe, have 

 shown from examination of Swaiuson's type specimen, that his elegans is the 

 C. lahtora, a widel3'-spread Asiatic species probably erroneously attributed to North 

 America. 



Family PRINGILLID^. Finches, etc. 



The largest North American family, comprising between one-seventh and one- 

 eighth of all our birds, and the most extensive group of its grade in ornithology. 

 As ordinarily constituted, it represents, in round numbers, five hundred current 

 species and one hundred genera, of nearly all parts of the world, except Australia, 

 but more particularly of the northern hemisphere and throughout America, where 

 the group attains its maximum development. 



Any one United States locality of average attractiveness to birds, has a bird- 

 fauna of over two hundred species ; and if it be av/aj from the sea-coast, and con- 

 sequently uninhabited by marine birds, about one-fourth of its species are Sylvico- 

 lifke and Fringillidre together — the latter somewhat in excess of the former. It is 

 not eas3', therefore, to give undue prominence to these two families. 



The FringilUdce are more particularly what used to be called "couirostral" birds, 

 in distinction from " fissirostres," as the swallows, swifts and goatsuckers, "teu- 

 uirostres," as humming birds and creepers, and " dentirostres," as warble-rs, vireos 

 and most of the preceding families. The bill approaches nearest the ideal cone, 

 combining strength to crush seeds, with delicacj' of touch to secure minute objects. 

 Tlie cone is sometimes nearly expresseil, but is more frequently turgid or conoidal, 

 convex in most directions, and sometimes so contracted that some of its outlines 

 arc concave. The nostrils are usually exposed, but in many, chiefly boreal, 

 genera, the base of the bill is furnished with a rutt', or two tufts of antrorse feathers 

 more or less completely covering the openings. The cutting edges ma\' be slightly 

 notched, but are usually plain ; tliere are usually a few inconspicuous bristles about 

 the rictu^, sometimes wanting, sometimes highly developed, as in our grosbeaks. 

 The wings are endlesslj^ varied in shape, but agree in possessing only nine 

 developed primaries ; the tail is equallj- variable in form, but always has twelve 

 rectrices. The feet show a strictly Oscine podotheca, scutellate in front, covered 

 on the side with an undivided plate, producing a sharp ridge behind. None of 

 these members offer extreme phases of development or arrestation, in any of our 

 species . 



But the most tangible characteristic of the familj^ is angulation of the commis- 

 snre. 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 var3ing 

 angle — the cutting edge of the upper mandible forming a reentrance, that of the 

 lower mandible a corresponding salience. In the great majoritj' of cases the fea- 

 ture is unmistakable, and in the grosbeaks, for example, it is very strongly marked 

 indeed ; but in some of the smaller-billed forms, and especially those with slender 

 bill, it is hardly perceptible. On the whole, however, it is a good character, and at 

 any rate it is the most reliable external feature that can be -found. It separates our 

 fringilline birds pretty trenchantly from other Oscines except Icteyidce, and most of 

 these may be distinguished by tlie characters given bej'ond. 



When we come, however, to consider this great , group of conirostral Oscines in 

 its entirety, as compared with bordering families like the Old World Ploceidoe^ or 

 the Icterid's^ and especially the Tanagridce, of the New, the difllculty if not the 

 impossibility of framing a perfect diagnosis becomes apparent, and I am not 



