FINCH (AS. fine, Ger. Fink; connected with Welsh pine, chaffinch, Russ. pienka, hedge-spar row). The popular name of a great number of species of small birds of the family Fringillida' (q.v.). Many of them have great powers of song, and are called by bird-fanciers 'hard-billed song-birds,' in contradistinction to the warblers (Sylviidae), or 'soft-billed song-birds.' 1'he Mille is sometimes used as equivalent to Fringillidas; but the limits of its popular use are ill defined, and some birds are known as finches and also as linnets, or as grosbeaks, etc. The word finch often forms part of the popular name of birds of this family, as bullfinch, chaffinch, hawfineh, etc., and is almost always used with some prefix or qualifying adjective. When used as a gen eral term applicable to the whole family, it in cludes those nine-primaried oscines (q.v.), with more or less conirostral bill, which have the cor ners of the mouth more or less sharply drawn down. The shape of the bill varies greatly; some times it is short and thick, sometimes compara tively slender and elongated, but it is almost al ways adapted to crushing seeds. Finches feed mostly on seeds and buds, but sonic species are more or less insectivorous. The family is a very large one, including some 550 species, which are found in all parts of the world except Australia. They are most abundant in the Northern Hemi sphere, and especially in America; 135 species and subspecies occur in the United States and Canada.
Finches are nearly allied to the tanagers, weav er-birds, and American starlings and blackbirds, and it is difficult to draw any hard and fast lines between these families. The birds called buntings,
sparrows, grosbeaks, linnets. redpolls. longspurs, and snowbirds are all finches, but will be treated of under these separate heads. In the United States the name finch is not in very common use, though there are some species with which it is constantly associated. The purple finch (Car podacus purpureus) is a good songster, and is often called the 'linnet.' The female is plain brown, streaked with black, but the male is suffused with rich rose-red, especially deep on the head, so that he is a handsome bird. This finch and very closely allied species occur over the whole of the United States. The rosy finches, of which there are some half-dozen species, con stituting the genus Leucosticte, are characteristic of the Rocky Mountain region, extending north and westward. They are seven inches or less in length, brownish or grayish in color, the males suffused with rosy red posteriorly. The grass finch (Pooretes gramineus) is more properly a sparrow, and is sometimes called vesper-spar row or bay-winged bunting. Other well-known finches of the United States are the summer finches (Peuccea), of which half a dozen species are found in the Southern and Western States; the painted finches (Passerina), of which the indigo-bird (q.v.) is a good example; the pine finches or siskins (q.v.) ; and finally the gold finches (q.v.). See Plates of CAGE-BIRDS and EGGS OF SONG-BIRDS.
Consult Ridgway. Birds of North and Middle .1mcrira, Part i. (Washington. 19011.