FINCH, one of the small, seed-eating birds, typical of the family Fringillida' (q.v.). The term as now commonly used refers to the smaller, more ornately dressed genera and species, and especially to those generally kept as cage-birds, as the canary, chaffinch, gold finch, hawfinch, greenfinch (qq.v.), and similar well-known kinds of the Old World. In the United States the name is reserved for the American goldfinch and its greenish relative of the north, the pinefinch; for the purple finch (q.v.), the rosy finches of the genus Leucosticte; the housefinch (q.v.) of California; and especially for the small gaudily colored southern birds of the genus Cyanospiza, represented in the Northern States by the indi go-bird (q.v.). In these little seed-eaters, such as the nonpareil (C. ciris), the lazuli finch (C. amwna), and the Mexican varied (C. versi color), the plumage of the male abounds in the richest tints of changeable blue and green. varied by other colors in pleasing contrast. All
utter sweet and varied notes, and are prized not only as garden visitors but as cage-birds. The name is also commonly given in the northeast ern United States to the more properly a sparrow (Foocales gramineus), a brown bird which breeds and spends its life in open fields, singing most sweetly at dusk, and easily recognized by the fact that when it takes flight it exhibits a white feather on each side of the tail.
one of the genus (Mi crohierax) of tiny falcons, or 'Ifalconets," of the East Indies. One, Microhierax ccerulescens, is found in the Himalayas and Burmese coun tries. Not one of these little hawks is seven inches in length; they are said to be used by native chiefs for hawking insects and button quails, being thrown from the hand like a ball. They sit solitary on high trees, and, according to native accounts, feed on small birds and insects.