SHARP-TAILED FINCH. jy 



SHABP-TAILED FINCH. {Fringilla caudacuta.) 



PLATE XXXIV.— Fig. 3. 



Sharp-tailed Oriole. Lath. Gen. Synop. ii. p. 448. pi. 17.— 

 Peale's Museum, No. 6442. 



AMMODRAMUS CA UDACUTUS.—Swaiksox* 



Ammodramus, Sivain. Zool. Journ. No. ii. p. 348. — Fringilla caudacuta, Bonap. 

 Synop. p. 110. 



A bird 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 I 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 numerous than the preced- 

 ing, 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, 



* 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, Embtriza LTenslowii. It will evi- 

 dently 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 no account 

 of its history and habits. — Ed. 



