312 SHARP-TAILED FINCH. 
yellow, bordered above with white and ending in yellow olive ; crown, 
brownish olive, divided laterally by a stripe of slate blue, or fine, light 
ash; breast, ash, streaked with buff; belly, white ; vent, buff colored, 
and streaked with black; upper parts of the back, wings, and tail, a 
yellowish brown olive, intermixed with very pale blue; greater and 
lesser coverts, tipped with dull white; edge of the bend of the wing, 
rich yellow ; primaries, edged with the same immediately below their 
coverts ; tail, cuneiform, olive brown, centered with black ; bill, dusky 
above, pale blue below, longer than is usual with Finches; legs and 
feet, a pale bluish white; irides, hazel. Male and female nearly alike 
in color. 
SHARP-TAILED FINCH. —FRINGILLA CAUDACUTA. — 
Fig. 152. 
Sharp-tailed Oriole, Lath. Gen. Synop. ii. p. 448, pl. 17. — Peale’s Museum, 
No. 6442, 
AMMODRAMUS CAUDACUTUS, — Swatnson.* 
Ammodramus, Swain. Zool. Journ. No. ii. p. 348. — Fringilla caudacuta, Bonap. 
Synop. p. 110. 
A sirp of this denomination is described by Turton, Syst. p. 562, 
but which by no means agrees with the present. This, however, may 
be the fault of the describer, as it is said to be a bird of Georgia. 
Unwilling, therefore, to multiply names unnecessarily, I have adopted 
his appellation. In some future part of the work, 1 shall settle this 
matter with more precision. 
This new (as I apprehend it) and beautiful species is an associate 
of the former; inhabits the same places ; lives on the same food; and 
resembles it so much in manners, that, but for their dissimilarity in 
some essential particulars, I would be disposed to consider them as 
the same in a different state of plumage. They are much less numer- 
ous than the preceding, and do not run with equal celerity. 
The Sharp-tailed Finch is five inches and a quarter long, and seven 
inches and a quarter in extent; bill, dusky; auriculars, ash; from the 
bill over the eye, and also below it, run two broad stripes of brownish 
orange; chin, whitish ; breast, pale buff, marked with small, pointed 
spots of black; belly, white ; vent, reddish buff; from the base of the 
upper mandible a broad stripe of pale ash runs along the crown and 
hind head, bordered on each side by one of blackish brown; back, a 
yellowish brown olive, some of the feathers curiously edged with semi- 
* Mr. Audubon has figured a bird, very closely allied in plumage, under the title 
of Ammodramus Henslowii, and, in the letter-press, has described it as Henslow’s 
Bunting, Emberiza Henslowii. It will evidently come under the first genus, and, 
if new and distinct, will form a third North American species. It is named after 
Professor Henslow, of Cambridge, and was obtained near Cincinnati. There is 
Ro account of its history and habits. — Ep. 
