Conspicuously Red of any Shade 
tic, and from Mexico northward to Manitoba. Most com- 
mon in Middle States and New England. Winters south of 
Pennsylvania. 
Migrations — March. November. Common summer resident. 
Rarely individuals winter at the north. 
In this “much be-sparrowed country” of ours familiarity is 
apt to breed contempt for any bird that looks sparrowy, in which 
case one of the most delicious songsters we have might easily be 
overlooked. It is not until the purple finch reaches maturity in 
his second year that his plumage takes on the raspberry-red tints 
that some ornithologists named purple. Oriental purple is our 
magenta, it is true, but not a raspberry shade. Before maturity, 
but for the yellow on his lower back and throat, he and his 
mate alike suggest a song-sparrow; and it is important to note 
their particularly heavy, rounded bills, with the tufts of feathers 
at the base, and their forked tails, to name them correctly. But 
the identification of the purple finch, after all, depends quite as 
much upon his song as his color. In March, when flocks of 
these birds come north, he has begun to sing a little ; by the be- 
ginning of May he is desperately in love, and sudden, joyous 
peals of music from the elm or evergreen trees on the lawn en- 
liven the garden. How could his little brown lady-love fail to 
be impressed with a suitor so gayly dressed, so tender and solici- 
tous, so deliciously sweet - voiced ? With fuller, richer song 
than the warbling vireo’s, which Nuttall has said it resembles, a 
perfect ecstasy of love pours incessantly from his throat during 
the early summer days. There is a suggestion of the robin’s 
love-song in his, but its copiousness, variety, and rapidity give 
it a character all its own. 
In some old, neglected hedge or low tree about the country- 
place a flat, grassy nest, lined with horsehair, contains four or 
five green eggs in June, and the old birds are devotion itself to 
each other, and soon to their young, sparrowy brood. 
But when parental duties are over, the finches leave our 
lawns and gardens to join flocks of their own kind in more re- 
mote orchards or woods, their favorite haunts. Their subdued 
warble may be heard during October and later, as if the birds 
were humming to themselves. 
Much is said of their fondness for fruit blossoms and tree 
buds, but the truth is that noxious insects and seeds of grain 
224 
