C.
A M P E L I S CRISTATA.
C H A R A C T E R SPECIFICUS.
Ampelis? purpurea, fubtus alba, vertice criftato cyaneo, remiglbus caudaque fiifcis.
S P E C I F I C CHARACTER.
Purple Ampelis? white beneath, the top of the head deep blue and crefted, the wing-feathers
and tail brown.
THE charafters of the genus Ampelis have already been given at T ab. VIII. I am not however
entirely without fufpicion that this bird may in reality rather belong to the genus Lanius,
or perhaps even to that of Mufcicapa: this however is what cannot be determined without
an accurate furvey of the bird itfelf, which I do not at prefent recolleft to have feen. The
beak IS black; the back, neck, and Ihoulders, of a purple red, or nearly of the fame colour
as in the Ampelis Pompadora of Linnajus, or the Pompadour bird: the forehead, crown, and
hind-head, of a fine deep blue, and the feathers are elongated into a crell: the wings and tail
are brown, but fome of the coverts ftrongly tinged with purple; the throat and cheeks are
nearly white; the breaft and belly of die fame colour, the uropygium or rump of a bluifli aillcolour,
and the legs blackini brown. It is faid to be an inhabitant of America: in point of
habit or general appearance it muft be confefled to bear a very ftriking refemblance to an
Ampelis.