Dimensions of a skin from California: Total length from tip of bill to end of tail about 5½ inches, wing 3¼, tail 2¾ inches. Col. M‘Call gives the total length of the recent bird as 6 inches, 1 line and alar extent 10 inches.
Colors. Male. Head entirely, back, rump, superior tail-coverts, neck before and breast, brownish red, inclining to crimson, most clear and distinct on the rump, superior tail-coverts and front immediately at the base of the bill, and most obscure on the back.
Wings and tail, blackish brown, every feather having paler edgings.
Abdomen and inferior tail-coverts, white, every feather having a longitudinal stripe of brown.
Bill, pale yellowish brown, lighter on the lower mandible.
Female. Without red on any part of the plumage. Body above, dark brownish, every feather having a longitudinal central stripe of a darker shade of the same color, and edged with lighter inclining to cinereous. Body beneath, sordid white, longitudinally dashed with brown.
Young Male. Much resembling the female, but with the red color appearing on the front at the base of the bill, on the neck and rump.
Hab. New Mexico and California. Spec. in Mus. Acad. Philada., and Nat. Coll. Washington.
Obs. This bird bears considerable resemblance to Carpodacus purpureus, but is smaller, and has occasionally been mistaken for Carpodacus frontalis. The latter is a distinct and very handsome Western American species, the young of which only has been figured, but of which adult specimens have been brought home by Mr. Bell and others.
It is possible that the present is the bird alluded to by Swainson as Fringilla purpurea? in Fauna Boreali Americana, II. p. 264, and by Sir William Jardine in his edition of Wilson’s American Ornithology, I. p. 121, (London and Edinburgh, 1832, 3 vols. octavo). The Fringilla hæmorrhoa, Wagler Isis, XXIV. p. 525, appears to be too large for this bird and more like the common C. purpureus.