BIKDS OF NORTH AND MIDDLE AMEKIOA. 123 



Genus CARPODACUS Kaup. 



Carpodacus Kaup, Entw. Eur. Thierw., 1829, 161. (Type, Loxia erythrina 

 Linnasus. ) 



Erythrothorax Brehm, Vog. Deutschl., 1831, 249. (Type, Loxia erythrina Lin- 

 naeus. ) 



Hsemorhous (not of Boie, 1826) Swainsox, Claspjf. Birds, ii, 1837, 295. (Type, 

 Fringilla purpurea Gmelin. ) 



Pyrrhulinota Hodgson, in Gray's Zool. Misc., 1844, 85. (Type, Loxia erythrina 

 Linnaeus. ) 



Burrica Ridgway, Man. N. Am. Birds, 1887, 390. (Type, Fringilla mexicana 

 Miiller. ) 



Rather small or medium-sized (occasionally large) arboreal tiiiches, 

 with the bill moderately developed, short-conical; adult males with 

 the plumage at least partly red, adult females and young males olive, 

 brownish, or grayish, the under parts whitish conspicuously streaked 

 with the color of the upper surface. 



Bill shorter than head, conical, thick, its depth at base greater than 

 its width at same point and about equal to (or a little more or less than) 

 length of maxilla from nostril; culmen mostly nearly or quite straight 

 (purpureus, cassinii, roseiis, etc.), or decidedly curved throughout {mexi- 

 canus, erythrinus, thura, etc.) ; maxillary tomium straight or even faintly 

 convex in middle portion {purpureus, cassinii, roseus) or concave nearly 

 throughout {mexicanus, erythrvnus, -thura). Wing less than four to 

 more than five times as long as tarsus; ninth, eighth, and seventh, or 

 eighth, seventh, and sixth primaries longest, the ninth usually equal to 

 or longer than the sixth, sometimes equal to the eighth, rarely shorter 

 than sixth; primaries exceeding secondaries by less than length of tar- 

 sus {thura) to nearly twice as much. Tail less than three-fourths as 

 long as wing to five-sixths as long {thura), deeply emarginate {pur- 

 pureas, cassinii, etc.) to nearly or quite even {uiexicamis). Tarsus 

 short, about equal to middle toe with claw. 



Coloration. — Adult- males with more or less of red, and more or less 

 streaked; adult females and young conspicuously streaked, especially 

 on under parts. 



Bange. — Temperate portions of Europe, Asia, and JSlorth America, 

 southward, in the last, to southern Mexico. 



1 have been strongly inclined to separate the conical-billed, fork- 

 tailed species from those with convex culmen, more or less arched 

 maxillary tomium and less forked (sometimes quite even) tail, but find 

 the extremes so nearly connected by species of more or less interme- 

 diate character that I have finally concluded to follow the usual custom 

 of keeping them all in one genus. To do this, however, requires a 

 very ' ' elastic " generic diagnosis, as may be seen above. I have not 

 been able to examine more than three ^ of the considerable number of 



^ See note 2 on page 124. 



