THE PURPLE FINCH 
By MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT 
The National Association of Audubon Societies 
Educational Leaflet No. 28 
The family of Sparrows and Finches, like that of the Warblers, Black- 
birds and Orioles, offers such an infinite variety of species, and disports 
so many contradictory fashions in the cut of beak and tinting of plumage, 
that when we have even a bowing acquaintance with its representatives 
we feel that we have really entered the realm of bird-knowledge. 
The Fringillidae are the largest of all bird-families, numbering some 
five hundred and fifty species, that inhabit all parts of the world except 
Australia. The one feature that binds them together, 
so far as the untrained observer may discover, is the Family 
stout bill, conical in shape, with great power for seed- 
crushing, for, first and last, all of the tribe are seed-eaters. Although in 
the nesting season much animal food is! eaten by adults as well as fed to 
the young, and tree-buds and fruits are also relished. Finches and Spar- 
rows can live well upon seeds — seeds of weeds, the seeds concealed be- 
tween the scales of pine-cones, and the pulp-enveloped seeds of wild fruits 
that are called berries. 
This ability to pick a living at any season of year when the seeded 
weeds of fields and roadsides are uncovered, makes what are called “per- 
manent residents” of many species of Sparrows, and causes them, when 
they migrate, to keep within a more restricted circle than their insect- 
eating brethren. Also, alas ! this seed-eating quality, coupled with beauty 
of plumage and voice, has made them favorite cage-birds the world over. 
Happily, freedom has now come to them in this country, together with 
all our birds, as far as the law may protect them. 
Run over the list of prominent members of the family of Finches and 
Sparrows. Call them by memory, if you can ; if not, take a book, and look 
them up, for it is quite worth while to know them. 
The Sparrows are clad in shades of brown, more or less streaked, and 
their dull colors protect them amid the grasses in which 
they feed and lodge. The birds of brighter plumage Sparrows 
are obliged to look out for themselves, as it were, and 
keep nearer the sky, where their colors, to a considerable extent, are 
lost in the blaze of light. 
First to be remembered are the birds that wear more or less red — 
the Cardinal, the Rose-breasted Grosbeak, the Redpolls, Crossbills, the 
Pine Grosbeak and the Purple Finch (who, is no more purple than he is 
blue or yellow, and might better have been named Crimson Finch). 
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