THE GRASS FINCH. 
151 
PoepMla mirahilisj Horabr. and Jacq.^ originally disco- 
vered at Eaffles Bay^ and afterwards found in other parts 
of the Cobourg Peninsula^ is specifically identical with 
Gould^s Poephila Goiildm, I once found a large flock 
of this bird in the neighbourhood of Coral Bay (near Port 
Essington)^ feeding on the seeds of grass^ and taking to 
the high gum-trees on being approached. No two indi- 
viduals agreed in plumage; the majority however were im- 
mature birds. Others^ with red heads^ had a few black 
feathers mixed up with the rest ; and black-headed indivi- 
duals had a few scattered red feathers; in shorty the two 
supposed species were mixed up together. This bird is not 
a constant resident in the Cobourg Peninsula ; and^ since 
its discovery in 1833 by the French, had not been observed 
there until about 1845, when it appeared in great flights, 
and remained for a few weeks only."*^ 
Sir John Richardson thus pleasingly alludes to the song 
of a species of the finch tribe, which he heard in the Arctic 
parts of North America on his late searching expedition 
after Sir John Pranklin : — Constantly, since the first of 
June, the song of the Fringilla leucopJirys has been heard 
day and night, and so loudly, in the stillness of the latter 
season, as to deprive us at first of rest. It whistles the first 
