SEA-SIDE FINCH. 
261 
essential particulars, I would be disposed to consider 
them as the same in a different state of plumage. They 
are much less numerous than the preceding, and do not 
run with equal celerity. 
The sharp-tailed finch is five inches and a quarter 
long, and seven inches and a quarter in extent ; bill, 
dusky ; auriculars, ash 5 from the bill over the eye, and 
also below it, run two broad stripes of brownish orange ; 
chin, whitish ; breast, pale buff, marked with small 
pointed spots of black ; belly, white ; vent, reddish 
buff ; from the base of the upper mandible a broad 
stripe of pale ash runs along the crown and hind head, 
bordered on each side by one of blackish brown ; back, 
a yellowish brown olive, some of the feathers curiously 
edged with semicircles of white ; sides under the wings, 
buff, spotted with black ; wing-coverts and tertials, 
black, broadly edged with light reddish buff ; tail, 
cuneiform, short ; all the feathers sharp pointed ; belly, 
white ; vent, dark buff ; legs, a yellow clay colour; 
irides, hazel. 
I examined many of these birds, and found but little 
difference in the colour and markings of their plumage. 
174 . FRING1LLA MARITIMA, WILSON. SEA-SIDE FINCH. 
WILSON, PLATE XXXIV. FIG. II. 
Of this bird I can find no description. It inhabits 
the low, rush-covered sea islands along our Atlantic 
coast, where I first found it; keeping almost continually 
within the boundaries of tide water, except when long 
and violent east or northeasterly storms, with high 
tides, compel it to seek the shore. On these occasions 
it courses along the margin, and among the holes and 
interstices of the weeds and sea-wrack, with a rapidity 
equalled only by the nimblest of our sandpipers, and 
very much in their manner. At these times also it 
roosts on the ground, and runs about after dusk. 
This species derives its whole subsistence from the 
sea. I examined a great number of individuals by dis- 
section, and found their stomachs universally filled with 
