Obs. This species resembles somewhat several others which are natives of the Southern extreme of North America, though not sufficiently to be readily confounded with either of them.
The description of Fringilla chlorura, Aud. in Orn. Biog. V. p. 336, consists of extracts of letters from Dr. Townsend, in which a bird is described, of which he procured no specimens, but evidently like the present, in some respects, but not with sufficient precision to be determined. He represents it as “a true Fringilla. The head of light brownish color spotted with dusky, back varied with dusky and greenish olive, rump brownish spotted with dusky, &c.” Our present bird is by no means a true Fringilla, nor does the description otherwise apply to it with such degree of probability as to be relied on.
Plate 13
The American House Finch
Carpodacus familiaris (M‘Call)
CARPODACUS FAMILIARIS.—M‘Call.
The American House-Finch.
PLATE XIII.—Male and Female.
When the winter of our northern climes has abated its rigors, and the season of brighter skies and returning flowers approaches, none of its early tokens are welcomed with more pleasing associations, than the reappearance of those familiar birds, which, like the Wren, the Blue Bird, and the Pewee Flycatcher, come pleasantly into the immediate vicinity of our dwellings, to select accommodations for the construction of their nests, and for rearing their young. They share the hospitality of the splendid mansion and the humble cottage, and are made welcome alike in each.
Of birds of this description, no species is more remarkable for its confiding disposition, than the little Finch now before the reader, and which is a native of the western countries of North America. It not only approaches the abodes of men without hesitation, and occupies habitually the suitable parts of houses and other buildings, but resorts in large numbers to such uncongenial localities as one might think them, as towns and cities. In several of those in New Mexico, and California, this bird is very abundant, and is a great favorite.
Several species of the same genus to which the present belongs, all of which present considerable similarity, inhabit northern countries of this continent, and others are found in the same latitudes of the old world. The males of all the species are clothed in plumage of fine crimson, or of purple of various and delicate shades, when they have attained maturity. The females are however of much plainer appearance, and generally present little similarity of color to their more gay consorts. The Purple Finch (Carpodacus purpureus) is the best-known American bird of this group. It is common as a winter visitor in the middle and southern States, and at that season its habits are such only as are adapted to a roving life in the woods. It retires in the spring to the northern states, and the mountains of Pennsylvania, and is there regarded with much favor on account of the beauty of its plumage and its agreeable song.
A species of the old world (C. erythrinus), which is one of several that are natives of northern Russia, of Siberia and Kamtschatka, is very similar in its general appearance to the Purple Finch, and, like it too, it has an extensive range of migration, appearing throughout European and Asiatic Russia, and the northern countries of India. Of the Asiatic species, one is remarkable for having been discovered on Mount Sinai, by an European naturalist, and in reference to that fact, has been named by him the Sinai Finch (Carpodacus sinaiticus.)
Our present bird appears to be the species alluded to by Dr. Gambel as the crimson-fronted Finch, Erythrospiza frontalis (Say), in the Journal of the Philadelphia Academy, Quarto, I. p. 53, in the following passage: “This handsome songster we first observed in New Mexico, particularly about Sante Fé, where it is an abundant and familiar resident, keeping about the corrals and gardens, and building its nest under the portals and sheds of the houses. In July the young were ready to fly, which must have been a second brood, or else they begin to lay much later than in California. Under a long shed or portal, in the Plaza or Square of Sante Fé, they had a great many nests; and the old birds would sometimes fly down about our feet while sitting at the doors, to pick up crumbs, &c. for their young.