478 MICHIGAN BIRD LIFE. 
canary, but it has another call, loud and characteristic, used mainly on the 
wing, and consisting of four emphatic notes. Its song is also somewhat 
canary-like and is often long continued and varied. Dr. Brewer says of 
it “It is sweet, brilliant and pleasing; more so indeed when given as a solo 
with no others of its kindred within hearing. I know of none of our common 
singers that excel it in either respect. Its notes are higher and more flute- 
like, and its song is more prolonged than that of the Purple Finch. Where 
large flocks are found in spring and early summer the males often join 
in a very curious and remarkable concert, in which the voices of several 
performers do not always accord. In spite of this frequent want of 
harmony, these concerts are varied and pleasing, now ringing like the 
loud voices of the canary, and now sinking into a low soft warble.” 
This bird is always sociable and is found in flocks during the greater part 
of the year. Even during the nesting season the males frequently gather 
in little companies about watering-troughs and other drinking places, and 
frequently a dozen of these bright plumaged birds will be found bathing 
in a puddle in the middle of the road. 
TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION. 
Adult male: In summer; forehead and front half of crown velvet black; upper tail- 
coverts white; rest of upper parts, including scapulars, bright lemon-yellow; entire under 
parts the same, except the under tail-coverts, which are white; wings deep black, the greater 
and middle coverts tipped with white, and most of the secondaries and tertiaries edged 
and tipped with the same; tail clear black, each feather with a broad white spot on inner 
web near tip; bill yellow; iris brown. 
Adult female: In summer; upper parts.olive-brown, yellowish on outer edge of scapulars; 
under parts buffy or yellowish-brown, varying to dull greenish-yellow, and whitening on 
belly and under tail-coverts; wings and tail about as in male, but duller black or even 
brownish. In winter the female is similar, but browner above and less yellowish below, 
the white wing-markings changing to buff. The male in winter resembles the female 
quite closely, but the wings are much blacker and the light wing-markings broader. Young 
birds of both sexes resemble the winter female, but are still browner and more buffy. 
Length 4.45 to 4.50 inches; wing 2.60 to 2.90; tail 1.80 to 2.10; culmen about .35. 
216. Pine Finch. Spinus pinus (Wils.). (533) 
Synonyms: Siskin, Pine Siskin, American Siskin, Pine Linnet.—Fringilla pinus, 
Wilson, 1810, also of Nuttall and Audubon.—Chrysomitris pinus, Baird, 1858, Coues, 
1873, B. B. & R., 1874, and many others.—Spinus pinus, A. O. U. Check-list, 1886, and 
most recent authors. 
Size and general appearance of the female Goldfinch, but distinctly ~ 
streaked with brown and gray, above and below, and with no yellow except 
on wings and tail; the half concealed yellow wing patches being 
characteristic. 
Distribution.—North America generally, breeding in the British Provinces 
and sparingly in the northern United States. 
Like its near relative, the Goldfinch, the Pine Finch is resident throughout 
the year in Michigan, but in a very different way. Over the larger part of 
the state it occurs only as a winter visitor or as a spring and fall migrant, 
appearing in flocks from October to March and occasionally lingering 
well into May and then disappearing northward. Throughout a consider- 
able part of the northern half of the state, however, it is resident during 
the summer, and it unquestionably nests in the higher parts of the Lower 
Peninsula, north of the Saginaw Grand Valley, and probably over the 
larger part of the Upper Peninsula. Its appearance is quite irregular 
