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CRIMSON-NECKED BULLFINCH.
PYRRHULA FROXVTALIS.
Plate VI. Fig. 1, Male; Fig. 2, Female.
Fringilla frontalis, SAY, in Long's Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, II,
p. 40.
Philadelphia Museum, No. 6276, Male; No. 6277, Female.
MUCH confusion exists in the works of naturalists respecting those
Finches and Bullfinches that are tinged with red; arid, in fact,
their great resemblance to each other, and their intricate synonymy,
render them very difficult to elucidate. The only species in Wil-
son's work with which the present may be confounded, is the
Fringilla purpurea, a bird closely related to ours, and for the first
time well figured, and permanently established by that author.'
But several other allied species may be mistaken for the Crimson-
* He was rather precipitate in asserting the Fringilla rosea and Loxia erythrina
to
be identical with his bird, as they are actually two very distinct species,
belonging to
the genus Pyrrhula, and proper to the old continent; whilst the purpurea
is a true
Fringilla, and peculiar to America. To those who have not critically investigated
the
subject, it may appear somewhat inconsistent to state, that the erythrina
is not an
inhabitant of this continent, when it is a well known fact, that many authors
speak of
it as an American bird. This apparent contradiction may be readily removed,
by
considering what bird those authors alluded to, when they stated the erythrina
to be a
native of North America. When Latham expressed a doubt in his Synopsis, whether
the birds in the neighbourhood of New-York, so much resembling the erythrina,
were
not specifically the same, he alluded to the Fringilla purpurea: Gmelin,
as usual, in
his miserable compilation, inserted this doubt of Latham as a certainty.
As to the
Crimson-headed Finch of Pennant, it is evidently the purpurea, thus excusing,
in part
the strange assertion of Wilson. Latham, also, committed an error in his
Index, by
placing the Loxia erythrina of Pallas and Gmelin, his own Crimson-headed
Finch, as
a variety of Fringilla rosea.
VOL. I.-N