Plumage soft, blended, rather compact on the back, slightly glossed. Wings shortish, curved, third and fourth quills longest, fifth and second nearly equal; the secondaries long and rounded. Tail long, graduated, and deeply emarginate, of twelve straight, narrow feathers, tapering to a rounded point.
Bill dark brown above, light blue beneath. Iris hazel. Feet very light flesh-coloured. The general colour of the upper parts is reddish-brown, the central parts of the feathers on the back black, their margins bluish-grey. Secondary coverts dull yellowish-brown on the outer edge; quills dark brown, the first seven or eight slightly edged with pale ochre, the rest edged with light brown; flexure of the wing bright yellow; small coverts varied with brown and yellowish-grey. Tail-feathers brown, lighter on the outer edges. A streak from the upper mandible over the eye, as well as the margin of the eye, ochre-yellow. Throat pale yellowish-grey, with a short streak of blackish on each side, from the base of the mandible; fore part of the breast and sides tinged with brown; the rest of the lower parts yellowish-grey.
Length 6 inches, extent of wings 7½; bill along the ridge ½, along the sides ⅝; tarsus ⅞.
The Female is slightly smaller, but does not differ in colouring.
This species belongs to the same group as the Yellow-winged Sparrow, the Savannah Finch, the Lincoln Finch, and the Henslow Finch. At the same time, the form of the bill and tail indicates an affinity to the Sharp-tailed Finch, the Sea-side Finch, and MacGillivray's Finch, which are maritime birds, while the former do not betake themselves to the salt marshes. Both groups, however, have the tail-feathers more or less sharp.
Pinckneya pubescens, Mich. Fl. Amer. vol. i. p. 105. Pursh, Fl. Amer. Sept. vol. i. p. 158.—Pentandria Monogynia, Linn.
This shrubby tree grows on the banks of rivers, and near swamps in Georgia; but the twig represented in the Plate was from a tree in the beautiful botanic garden of M. Noisette, a few miles from Charleston, in South Carolina. The leaves are oval, acute at both ends, somewhat downy beneath; the flowers are yellow, tinged with red; one of the divisions of the calyx enlarges to a whitish leaf, tinged with red, which renders the plant highly ornamental.
THE TURTLERS.
The Tortugas are a group of islands lying about eighty miles from Key West, and the last of those that seem to defend the peninsula of the Floridas. They consist of five or six extremely low uninhabitable banks formed of shelly sand, and are resorted to principally by that class of men called Wreckers and Turtlers. Between these islands are deep channels, which, although extremely intricate, are well known to those adventurers, as well as to the commanders of the revenue cutters, whose duties call them to that dangerous coast. The great coral reef or wall lies about eight miles from these inhospitable isles, in the direction of the Gulf, and on it many an ignorant or careless navigator has suffered shipwreck. The whole ground around them is densely covered with corals, sea-fans, and other productions of the deep, amid which crawl innumerable testaceous animals, while shoals of curious and beautiful fishes fill the limpid waters above them. Turtles of different species resort to these banks, to deposit their eggs in the burning sand, and clouds of sea-fowl arrive every spring for the same purpose. These are followed by persons called "Eggers," who, when their cargoes are completed, sail to distant markets, to exchange their ill-gotten ware for a portion of that gold, on the acquisition of which all men seem bent.