GROUND FINCHES. 
175 
are often imported into this country, and sold at a 
high price. It is eight inches in length ; all the upper 
parts are dull dusky-red, the crest (which is long, 
pointed, and erectible) and the whole under parts, 
bright vermilion. The strength and musical power of 
their voice have obtained for these birds the appellation 
of Yirginian Nightingales. Wilson says that to this 
name, as Dr. Latham observes, they are fully entitled, 
from the clearness and variety of their notes, which, 
both in a wild and domestic state, are very various and 
musical : many of them resemble the high notes of a 
fife, and are nearly as loud. They are in song from 
March to September, beginning at the first appearance 
of dawn, and repeating a favourite stanza or passage 
twenty or tliirty times successively ; sometimes with 
. little intermission for a whole morning together, 
which, like a good story too often repeated, becomes 
at length tiresome and insipid. 33ut the sprightly 
figure and gaudy plumage of the Dcd Bird, as he is 
commonly called in the United States — his vivacity, 
strength of voice, and actual variety of note, and the 
little expense with which he is kept — will always make 
him a favourite. In the Northern States they are 
migratory; but in the lower parts of Pennsylvania 
they reside during the whole year, frequenting the 
borders of creeks and rivulets in sheltered hollows, 
covered with holly, laurel, and other evergreens. They 
love also to reside in the vicinity of fields of Indian 
corn, a grain that constitutes their chief and favourite 
food. The seeds of apples, cherries, and of many 
other sorts of fruit, are also eaten by them, and they 
are accused of destroying bees. 
