Peucæa æstivalis.
Sp. Char. All the feathers of the upper parts rather dark brownish-red or chestnut, margined with bluish-ash, which almost forms a median stripe on the crown. Interscapular region and upper tail-coverts with the feathers becoming black in the centre. An indistinct ashy superciliary stripe. Under parts pale yellow-brownish, tinged with ashy on the sides, and with darker brownish across the upper part of the breast. A faint maxillary dusky line. Indistinct streaks of chestnut along the sides. Edge of wing yellow; lesser coverts tinged with greenish. Innermost secondaries abruptly margined with narrow whitish. Legs yellow. Bill above dusky, yellowish beneath. Outer tail-feathers obsoletely marked with a long blotch of paler at end. Female considerably smaller. Young with rounded dusky specks on the jugulum, which is more ochraceous. Length, 6.25; wing, 2.30; tail, 2.78.
Hab. Georgia; Florida; South Illinois, breeding (Ridgway). (Perhaps whole of Southern States from Florida to South Illinois.)
Specimens from Southern Illinois (Wabash Co., July, 1871; coll. of R. Ridgway) are similar to Florida examples.
Habits. Bachman’s Finch has only been known, until very recently, as a species of a very restricted range, and confined within the limits of the States of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. Our principal, and for some time our only, knowledge of its habits was derived from the account furnished by Rev. Dr. Bachman to Mr. Audubon. That observing naturalist first met with it in the month of April, 1832, near Parker’s Ferry, on the Edisto River, in South Carolina. Dr. Henry Bryant afterwards met with this species at Indian River, in Florida, where he obtained specimens of its nests
and eggs. Dr. Alexander Gerhardt also found these Sparrows common at Varnell’s Station, in the northern part of Georgia. Professor Joseph Leconte has taken it near Savannah, and Mr. W. L. Jones has also obtained several specimens in Liberty County, in the same State.
After meeting with this species on the Edisto, Dr. Bachman ascertained, upon searching for them in the vicinity of Charlestown, that they breed in small numbers on the pine barrens, about six miles north of that city. He was of the opinion that it is by no means so rare in that State as has been supposed, but that it is more often heard than seen. When he first heard it, the notes so closely resembled those of the Towhee Bunting that for a while he mistook them for those of that bird. Their greater softness and some slight variations at last induced him to suspect that the bird was something different, and led him to go in pursuit. After that it was quite a common thing for him to hear as many as five or six in the course of a morning’s ride, but he found it almost impossible to get even a sight of the bird. This is owing, not so much to its being so wild, as to the habit it has of darting from the tall pine-trees, on which it usually sits to warble out its melodious notes, and concealing itself in the tall broom-grass that is almost invariably found in the places it frequents. As soon as it alights it runs off, in the manner of a mouse, and hides itself in the grass, and it is extremely difficult to get a sight of it afterwards.
It was supposed by Dr. Bachman—correctly, as it has been ascertained—to breed on the ground, where it is always to be found when it is not singing. He never met with its nest. In June, 1853, he observed two pairs of these birds, each having four young. They were pretty well fledged, and were following their parents along the low scrub-oaks of the pine lands.
Dr. Bachman regarded this bird as decidedly the finest songster of the Sparrow family with which he was acquainted. Its notes are described as very loud for the size of the bird, and capable of being heard at a considerable distance in the pine woods where it occurs, and where at that season it is the only singer.
He also states that, by the middle of November, they have all disappeared, probably migrating farther south. It is quite probable that they do not go beyond the limits of the United States, and that some remain in South Carolina during the whole of winter, as on the 6th of February, the coldest part of the year, Dr. Bachman found one of them in the long grass near Charleston.