(_Carpodacus purpureus_) Finch family
_Called also_: PURPLE LINNET
(Illustration facing p. 226a)
_Length_--6 to 6.25 inches. About the same size as the English
sparrow.
_Male_--_Until two years old_, sparrow-like in appearance like
the female, but with olive-yellow on chin and lower back.
_Afterwards_ entire body suffused with a bright raspberry-red,
deepest on head, lower back, and breast, and other parts only
faintly washed with this color. More brown on back; and wings
and tail, which are dusky, have some reddish-brown feathers.
Underneath grayish white. Bill heavy. Tail forked.
_Female_--Grayish olive-brown above; whitish below; finely
streaked everywhere with very dark brown, like a sparrow.
Sides of breast have arrow-shaped marks. Wings and tail
darkest.
_Range_--North America, from Columbia River eastward to
Atlantic, and from Mexico northward to Manitoba. Most common
in Middle States and New England. Winters south of
Pennsylvania.
_Migrations_--March. November. Common summer resident. Rarely
individuals winter at the north.
In this "much be-sparrowed country" of ours familiarity is apt to
breed contempt for any bird that looks sparrowy, in which case one of
the most delicious songsters we have might easily be overlooked. It is
not until the purple finch reaches maturity in his second year that
his plumage takes on the raspberry-red tints that some ornithologists
named purple. Oriental purple is our magenta, it is true, but not a
raspberry shade. Before maturity, but for the yellow on his lower back
and throat, he and his mate alike suggest a song-sparrow; and it is
important to note their particularly heavy, rounded bills, with the
tufts of feathers at the base, and their forked tails, to name them
correctly. But the identification of the purple finch, after all,
depends quite as much upon his song as his color. In March, when
flocks of these birds come north, he has begun to sing a little; by
the beginning of May he is desperately in love, and sudden, joyous
peals of music from the elm or evergreen trees on the lawn enliven the
garden. How could his little brown lady-love fail to be impressed with
a suitor so gayly dressed, so tender and solicitous, so deliciously
sweet-voiced? With fuller, richer song than the warbling vireo's,
which Nuttall has said it resembles, a perfect ecstasy of love pours
incessantly from his throat during the early summer days. There is a
suggestion of the robin's love-song in his, but its copiousness,
variety, and rapidity give it a character all its own.
In some old, neglected hedge or low tree about the country-place a
flat, grassy nest, lined with horsehair, contains four or five green
eggs in June, and the old birds are devotion itself to each other, and
soon to their young, sparrowy brood.
But when parental duties are over, the finches leave our lawns and
gardens to join flocks of their own kind in more remote orchards or
woods, their favorite haunts. Their subdued warble may be heard during
October and later, as if the birds were humming to themselves.
Much is said of their fondness for fruit blossoms and tree buds, but
the truth is that noxious insects and seeds of grain constitute their
food in summer, the berries of evergreens in winter. To a bird so gay
of color, charming of voice, social, and trustful of disposition,
surely a few blossoms might be spared without grudging.