FINCHES, SPARROWS, ETC. 
369 
52. Family Fringillid^e. Finches, Sparrows, Etc. (Fig. 64.) 
This, the largest family of birds, contains some twelve hundred 
species and subspecies, which are represented in all parts of the world 
except the Australian region. Sparrows are plastic birds, responding 
so readily to environmental influences that probably not more than 
half the forms recognized in this family deserve standing as species, 
while the remaining half are climatic or geographic races. They present 
wide diversity of form and habit, but generally agree in possessing stout, 
conical bills, which are admirably adapted to crush seeds. They are 
thus chief among seed-eaters, and for this reason are not so migratory as 
insect-eating species. It is only of late years that their great economic 
value as the destroyers of weed-seeds has been recognized. 
The brown, streaked Sparrows are, to a large extent, field- or plain- 
inhabiting, and their neutral colors are therefore a means of protection 
in the exposed situations they inhabit. The brighter Grosbeaks and 
Finches are more arboreal. Many species take high rank as songsters, 
and some of our favorite cage-birds belong to this family. 
The birds of this family are now generally considered to represent 
the most highly developed type of the Class Aves, and the anatomical 
reasons on which this claim is based are supported by their numerical 
abundance; thus the Order Passer es , beyond question the highest of 
avian groups, contains the greatest number of species, a distinction 
in turn shared by its ‘highest’ family. 
KEY TO THE SPECIES 
I. Underparts with red. 
II. Underparts with no red and without distinct streaks; throat or breast 
sometimes with a patch or spot. 
III. Underparts without red and with numerous streaks. 
S. Underparts with red. 
1. Wing-coverts plainly tipped with white or whitish, or with a white or 
yellow band in the wing. 
A . No red in the upperparts. 
a. Back black, rump whitish, throat black, breast and under wing- 
coverts rosy red . . 595. Rose-breasted Grosbeak (d 1 ad.) 
b. Back and underparts streaked with black; under wing-coverts 
rosy red. . . . 595. Rose-breasted Grosbeak (c? im.). 
B. With red in the upperparts. 
а. Red on upperparts confined to crown or forehead, and sometimes 
a tinge on the rump; wing under 3*25. 
a 1 . Rump and flanks generally without blackish streaks; feathers 
of back generally with whitish borders. 
527. Greenland Redpoll. 527a. Hoary Redpoll. 
a 2 . Rump and flanks always streaked; feathers of back with 
little white, if any, and generally with brownish borders. 
528. Redpoll and races. 
a 3 . Back cinnamon-brown, unstreaked; crown, nape, and sides of 
neck black; a yellow band in the wing. 
European Goldfinch. 
б. Red or pink spread more or less over entire upperparts; wing over 
3-25. 
