FBINGILLID^ : FINCHES, BUNTINGS, SPABROWS, ETC. 369 
79. MELOSPI'ZA. (Gr. fieXos, melos, song, melody, and (ririCa, spiza, name of some Fiucli in Aris- 
totle). Song Sparrows. Bill moderate, conic, without special turgidity or compression, out- 
lines of culmen, commissure, gonys and sides nearly or about straight. Wings short and much 
rounded, folding little beyond base of tail ; 1st primary quite short ; point of wing formed by 3d, 
4th, and 5th, supported closely by 2d and 6th ; inner secondaries not elongated. Tail long, 
about equalling or rather exceeding the wings, much rounded, with firm feathers broad to their 
rounded ends. Feet moderately stout ; tarsus scarcely or not longer than middle toe and claw ; 
lateral toes slightly unequal, outer the longer, its claw scarcely or not reaching base of middle 
claw. Embracing a large number of middle-sized and large sparrows, wdthout a trace of yellow 
anywhere, and of brownish-yellow only in M. Uncolni; upper parts, including crown, thickly 
streaked ; under parts white or ashy, thickly streaked across breast and along sides (excepting 
adult M. palustris). No bright color anywhere, and no colors in masses. The type of the genus 
is the familiar and beloved song sparrow, — a 
bird of constant characters in the East, but which 
in the West is split into numerous geographical 
races, some of them looking so different from 
typical fasciata that they have been considered 
as distinct species, and even placed in other gen- 
era. This differentiation affects not only the 
color, but the size, relative proportion of parts, 
and particularly the shape of the bill; and it is 
sometimes so great, as in case of M. cinerea, that 
less dissimilar-looking birds are commonly as- 
signed to different genera. Nevertheless, the 
gradation is complete, and effected by impercep- 
tible degrees. Some Northwestern forms of 
great size and dark colors are easily discrimi- 
nated, but there are U. S. birds from Atlantic to 
Pacific which are not readily told apart. The Fig. 232. — Lincoln's Song-Spanow reduced, 
student should not be discouraged if a subject (Sheppard del. Nichols sc.) 
which has tried the chiefs perplexes him ; nor must he expect to find drawn on paper hard and 
fast lines which do not exist in nature. The curt antithetical expressions used in constructing 
the analysis of species and varieties necessarily exaggerate the case, and are only true as indi- 
cating the typical style of each ; plenty of specimens lie between the lines" as written. In 
going over a large series of Western song sparrows — specimens picked to illustrate types of 
style rather than connecting links, it still seems to me that distinctions have been somewhat 
forced ; and that, also, different degrees of variation are thrown out of proper perspective by 
reducing all the forms to the same varietal plane. Thus, the differences between cinerea 
and all the rest, or between rufina and fasciata, are much greater than between rufina and 
guttata for instance, or between fallax and fasciata. In any outline of the genus the curves and 
angles indicated by Baird in 1858 are as far as they go nicer qualifications than the dead-level 
varieties later in vogue. The several degrees of likeness and unlikeness may be thrown 
into true relief better by some such expressions as the following than by formal antithetical 
phrases: — 1. The common eastern bird slightly modified in the arid interior into the duller 
colored 2. fallax. This, in the Pacific water shed, more decidedly modified by deeper 
coloration, — broader black streaks in 3. heermanni, with its diminutive local race 4. samuelis, 
and more ruddy shades in 5. guttata northward increasing in intensity, with increased size, 
in 6. rufina. Then the remarkable 7. cinerea, insulated much further apart than any of 
the others. A former American school would probably have made four "'good species.'' 
1. fasciata; 2. samuelis; 3. rufina; 4. cinerea. The present British school might perhaps 
24 
