ARKANSAW SISKIN. 
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siskin are bright yellow, whilst the corresponding parts of the 
European siskin are tinged with greenish, the throat being 
black, and the belly, vent, and flanks, whitish, spotted longi- 
tudinally with black ; the margins and spots of the wing and 
tail feathers, are white in our bird, and yellow in the European 
siskin ; the wdiite spots on the tail of the Arkansaw siskin are 
confined to the three outer feathers, whilst, in the foreign bird, 
all the feathers, excepting the two middle ones, are marked 
with yellow ; the bill of our species is also a little shorter, less 
compressed, and less acuminated ; finally, we may notice an- 
other trifling difference, which consists in the proportional 
length of the primaries, the four first being nearly equal in 
the American bird, and the three first only in the European, 
the fourth being almost a quarter of an inch shorter. The 
other approximate species, Fringilla Magellanica^ VieilL, con- 
sidered by Gmelin and Latham as a variety of the European 
siskin, is readily distinguishable, by having the head entirely 
black. 
Though the Mexican siskin (Fringilla Mexicana^ Gmel.) 
may prove to be the female of our bird, or the male in an im- 
' perfect state of plumage (and, from the locality, we should 
possibly have referred it to that name, had the classification of 
it fallen to our lot), yet, as nothing positive can be drawn from 
so unessential an indication as that of the Mexican siskin, we 
have no hesitation in following the same course with Say, who 
considers it as entirely new, and have retained his elegant 
name of Fringilla psaltaria. It is very possible that not only 
the Fringilla Mexicana, but also the Black Mexican siskin, 
(Fringilla catotol, Gmel.) may be the same bird as our Frin-- 
gilla psaltaria ; but how can we determine, from the vague de- 
scriptions that have been given of those species? They are 
equally applicable to the American goldfinch in its dull state 
of plumage ; and Wilson expresses a doubt whether or not 
the black Mexican siskin is the same as his new species, 
Fringilla pinus. 
All these pretty little birds belong to the subgenus Car- 
