The head is capped with black; the cheeks are dusky; the bill yellow, with a black tip; iris burnt umber; neck above, and half its side, back, and rump olivaceous, more or less intermixed with dusky; smaller wing coverts blackish, edged with olivaceous; greater wing coverts brown-black, tipped with white, forming a narrow band; primaries fuscous, and, excepting the exterior one, slightly edged with white; third, fourth, and fifth feathers white towards the base, so as to exhibit a white spot beyond the wing coverts; secondaries margined with white exteriorly towards their tips: tail coverts black, varied with olivaceous on their shafts; tail emarginate, feathers blackish, slightly edged with dull whitish; the three exterior ones pure white on their inner webs, excepting at base and tip; all beneath yellow; feet pale. A specimen is deposited in the Philadelphia Museum.
2. Fringilla frontalis, Say.—Crimson-necked Finch. Head, throat, neck beneath, and upper portion of the breast brilliant crimson, most intense near the bill and over the eyes; rump and tail coverts paler crimson; between the bill and the eye grey; bill dark horn colour, lower mandible paler; vertex, occiput, neck above and each side brown, tinged with reddish, the feathers margined with pale; back dusky brownish; wings and tail fuscous, the latter feathers edged on the inner side with white; the primaries broadly margined within, towards the base, with white, and exteriorly edged with a grayish; coverts and tertials edged with dull grayish; inferior portion of the breast, the belly, and vent whitish, each feather with a broad fuscous line.
Female, dusky brown, the feathers margined each side with dull whitish; wings fuscous, the margining and edging of the feathers not as distinct as in the male; all beneath, excepting the tail and wing feathers, whitish, each feather with a brown streak.
This bird is much more closely allied, both in size and colouring, to the purple Finch (F. purpurea) than to the crimson-headed Finch (F. rosea), and may prove to be only a variety of it, when a comparison of many individuals can be made. The male, from which the above description is drawn out, may not be in its ultimate state of plumage, as it seems probable that the middle of the head, the upper part of the neck, and the back, in the perfect plumage, is more obviously tinted with crimson than we have observed those parts to be. It differs, however, from the Purple Finch in the tint of the crimson colour, which is far more lively and brilliant, and also in having each feather of the belly, vent, and inferior tail coverts broadly streaked with brown. We apply to it provisionally the name of F. frontalis. A prepared specimen of this bird is in the Philadelphia Museum.—James.
[159] Having followed in general the course of Cheyenne Creek, the party must have encamped a short distance south of the site of Colorado Springs, where the stream flows into Fountain Creek. From this point there is a magnificent view of Pike's Peak, which Pike himself usually called Grand Peak. His estimate of the height was 18,581 feet; the error was due partially to his assumption of the excessive elevation of 8,000 feet for the plain at the base. See the estimate of Lieutenant Swift, in succeeding volume, note 11.—Ed.
[160] One of the horses has been since found.—James.
Transcriber's Note:
Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.