YELLOW-WINGED SPARROW. 365 



beyond the mountains," this must, doubtless, be for the pur- 

 pose of finishing the education of their striplings here, as is 

 done in Europe, by making the grand tour. This, by the by, 

 would be a much more convenient retrograde route for the 

 ducks and geese ; as, like the Kentuckians, they could take 

 advantage of the current of the Ohio and Mississippi, to float 

 down to the southward. Unfortunately, however, for this 

 pretty theory, all our vernal visitants with which I am 

 acquainted, are contented to plod home by the same regions 

 through which they advanced, not even excepting the geese. 



YELLOW- WINGED SPARROW. {Fringilla passerina.) 



PLATE XXIV. -Fig. 5. 



Peale's Museum, No. 6585. 



EMBEBIZA ? PASSERINA— Jakdine.* 



Fringilla (sub-genus Spiza) passerina, Bonap. Synop, p. 109. 



This small species is now for the first time introduced to the 

 notice of the public. I can, however, say little towards illus- 

 trating its history, which, like that of many individuals of the 

 human race, would be but a dull detail of humble obscurity. 

 It inhabits the lower parts of New York and Pennsylvania ; 

 is very numerous on Staten Island, where I first observed it ; 

 and occurs also along the sea coast of New Jersey. But, 

 though it breeds in each of these places, it does not remain in 

 any of them during the winter. It has a short, weak, inter- 

 rupted chirrup, which it occasionally utters from the fences 

 and tops of low bushes. Its nest is fixed on the ground 



* " A few of these "birds," the Prince of Musignano remarks, " can 

 never be separated in any natural arrangement." What are now placed 

 under the name Emberiza, will require a subgenus for themselves, per- 

 haps the analogous form of that genus in the New World. In this species 

 we have the palatial knob, and converging edges of the mandibles ; and, 

 by Bonaparte, it is placed among the finches, in the second section of his 

 subgenus Spiza, as forming the passage to the buntings. — Ed. 



