Variation in Color of Male House Finches

Abstract

By HAROLD IN COLOR OF MALE HOUSE FINCHES ” and JOSEPHINE Descriptions of the California House Finch ( Carpodacus me & anus frontalis ) are quite uniform in recognizing that orange occasionally takes the place of the typical red in the color of the males . Bailey ( l ), Hoffmann ( Wyman ( 4 ) all mention this in their descriptions of the species . The fact that the range in color is far wider than this is recognized , if not in the general literature on the subject , by all ornithologists and by many who are merely bird lovers . led us to an interest in the color variation of this species , and , almost immediately , to the taking of notes on the color of each male House Finch . We soon felt this method cumbersome and inadequate , especially so because more than one person was engaged in the work , and notes on color , even by the same person , have a tendency to be extremely difficult to visualize at a later date . It , therefore , was decided to preserve actual feathers for comparison and these were taken from the rump feathers , of which a few can be removed with apparently no discomfort to the bird . If the color on the head or chest varied from the rump , or if for any other reason a note on the coloring seemed desirable , these , together with the bird ’ s number and the date , were written on the paper in which the feathers were wrapped . When a number of such samples had been collected they were trans- fered to sheets of paper , one for each bird represented by a feather sample . In addi- tion , the date and band number of each sample was entered in a card index , and whenever a male linnet was captured a glance in the index told whether a sample had been taken during the previous three months . If not , a new one was taken . For the purpose of studying the colors this method has both defects and ad- vantages . The great advantage is that it permits the study of the same bird in different plumages under natural conditions , provided the bird returns one or more times with intervening molts . We have had one of these birds in six successive plumages , and since linnets are reported as always turning yellow in captivity , it seemed worth while to follow their colors in the wild state . This we have had an unusual opportunity to do because of the large number handled in our banding operations . A total of 1982 plumage samples collected from 1563 male House Finches , 337 of which are represented by samples for more than one year , is con- sidered in the present study . The defects of the method are that it compels the collection of a great quantity of material because it is never known which birds will return and . that there is a possibility that plucked feathers will be replaced by new ones of a different color , which at the next capture would be plucked and cause confusion . However , we think that such evidence as we have indicates that replacement feathers are the same color as those replaced . We have more than fifty birds from which samples were taken more than once during a year ; from some , five or six times , but in none of been any reason to think that the color has been changed by the plucking . As a matter of fact , the same feathers were not sought for this study . The effort was only to get the color shown by the bird . We have one instance of a bird which was red , but a rather pale red , in November , returning in June with head and breast red and the entire rump yellow . We did wonder if this could