Page:Ornithological biography, or an account of the habits of the birds of the United States of America, vol 2.djvu/576

540 find, it chants for hours ; or, diving into the thickets, it hops from branch to branch, until it reaches the ground, in search of those insects and ber- ries from which it derives its support. It moves swiftly off when it dis- covers an enemy ; and, if forced to take wing, flies low and rapidly to some considerable distance, jerking its tail as it proceeds, and throwing itself at the foot of the thickest bush it meets. I found it mostly near streams, and always in the small valleys, guarded from the cold winds so prevalent in the country, and which now and then nip the vegetation, and destroy many of the more delicate birds.

Like every other species of the genus, Lincoln's Finch is petulant and pugnacious. Two males often chase each other, vmtil the weaker is forced to abandon the valley, and seek refuge in another. On this account I seldom saw more than two or three pairs in a tract seven or eight miles in extent.

On the 4th of July, the young were out of the nest, following their parents ; and as, from that time, the old birds ceased to sing, I concluded that they raise only one brood each year. Before we left Labrador, these Finches had all disappeared. In what parts this species passes the winter is unknown to me ; nay, I never met with it in any of the Southern States, although I saw several specimens in the collection of the learned William Cooi'ER, Esq. of New York, that had been procured in the vicinity of that city.

The plants represented along with a pair of these birds, grew in the little valley in which the first individual seen by us was procured. They were taken up with a spade from the midst of a rich broad bed of mosses, and may serve to convey an idea of the nature of the vegetation of those places.

Lincoln's Finch, Frtkgilla Lincolnii.

Adult Male. Plate CXCIII. Fig. 1.

Bill short, conical, acute ; upper mandible almost straight in its dorsal outline, rounded on the sides ; lower mandible slightly convex beneath, the sides rounded ; edges of both sharp and inflected ; gap-line deflected at the base. Nostrils basal, roundish, partially concealed by the feathers. Head rather large, neck short, body rather full. Feet of moderate length, slender ; tarsus covered anteriorly with a few longish scutella ;