PURPLE FINCH. 
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are one and the same, viz. the Purple Finch, the subject of 
the present article. * 
The Purple Finch is six inches in length, and nine in 
extent; head, neck, back, breast, rump, and tail-coverts, dark 
crimson, deepest on the head and chin, and lightest on the 
lower part of the breast ; the back is streaked with dusky ; 
the wings and tail are also dusky black, edged with reddish ; 
the latter a good deal forked ; round the base of the bill, the 
recumbent feathers are of a light clay or cream colour ; belly 
and vent, white ; sides under the wings, streaked with dull 
reddish; legs, a dirty purplish flesh colour ; bill, short, strong, 
conical, and of a dusky horn colour; iris, dark hazel; the 
feathers covering the ears are more dusky red than the other 
parts of the head. This is the male when arrived at its full 
colours. The female is nearly of the same size, of a brown 
olive or flaxen colour, streaked with dusky black ; the head, 
* The present figure is that of an adult male, and that sex in the winter 
state is again figured and described in the second volume. Bonaparte has shewn 
that Wilson is wrong in making the F. rosea of Pallas, and the Loxia 
erythrina of Gmelin, the same with his bird. Mr Swainson remarks, “We are 
almost persuaded that there are two distinct species of these Purple Finches, 
which not only Wilson, but all the modern ornithologists of America, have 
confounded under the same name.” We may reasonably conclude, then, that 
another allied species may yet be discovered, and that perhaps Wilson was 
wrong regarding birds which he took for the F. rosea. 
F. purpurea and Pyrrliula frontalis of Say and Bonaparte will rank as a 
subgenus in Pyrihula, and from the description of their habits, approach very- 
near to both the Crossbills and Pine Grosbeaks. 
By the attention of the Prince of Musignano, I have received his review of 
Cuvier’s j Rdgne Animal, and am now enabled to state from it the opinion of 
that ornithologist regarding the station of these birds. He agrees in the 
subordinate rank of the group, and its alliance to the Finches, Bulfinches, 
and Coccothraustes or Hawfinch, and proposes the subgeneric name of Erythro- 
spiza, which 1 have provisionally adopted, having Frinyilla purpurea of Wilson 
as typical, and containing Pyrrliula frontalis, Say and Bonap. ; P. githaginea, 
Temm. PI. Col. ; Loxia Siberica, Falck. ; L. rosea, Pall. ; L. erythrina, Pall.; 
P. synoica, Temm. PI. Col. ; and L. rubicilla, Lath. According to the list of 
species which he has mentioned, and which we have no present opportunity of 
comparing with the true type, the group will have a very extensive distribution 
over America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. — Ed. 
