318 
LAZULI FINCH. 
consulting the boundaries assigned to it by themselves, have 
recorded a copious list of species, whilst in nature its limits 
are much restricted. We are not therefore surprised, that so 
acute a zoologist as Say should have arranged his bird in that 
genus, particularly as it is more closely allied to Emheriza than 
many of those, not only of Wilson, but even of Linne and 
Latham. 
This bird, which we have no hesitation in pronouncing one 
of the most beautiful of its tribe, would be placed by Vieillot in 
his genus Passerina ; but, according to my classification, it be- 
longs to the genus Fringilla^ and to that American subgenus 
lately established in my Observations on the Nomenclature of 
Wilson^ s Ornithology f under the name of Spiza, As a species, 
it is more intimately allied to Fringilla ciris and Fringilla 
cyaneaf which I stated in that paper to dijffer so much from 
their congeners, particularly in the greater curvature of the up- 
per mandible, as to deserve, perhaps, a separation into a small 
subgenus by themselves. This would unite Fringilla to Tan- 
agra^ as Spiza, on the other hand, shows its transition to Embe^- 
riza. 
The lazuli finch is five inches and three quarters long ; the 
bill is formed like that of the Indigo bird {Fringilla cyanea, 
Wilson), but is emarginated near the tip, being horn colour, 
as well as the feet ; the irides are dark brown ; the whole head 
and neck are brilliant verdigrise blue ; the back is brownish 
black, intermixed with blue, and a little ferruginous brown ; 
the rump is pure verdigrise blue ; the superior portion of the 
breast is pale ferruginous ; the lower part of the breast, the 
belly, and inferior tail- coverts, are white; the smaller wing- 
coverts are blue ; the middling coverts are blackish at base, 
and broadly tipped with white, forming a wide band across the 
wing ; the greater wing-coverts are blackish, obscurely mar- 
gined with blue, and slightly tipped with white on the exte- 
rior web, constituting a second band across the wings parallel 
* Its relation to Fringilla cyanea, considered as Emheriza, probably induced Say 
to place it under that genus. 
