shade of the same, which becomes still less deep on the belly
and dies away, oyer the vent and on the lower tail-coverts,
into a dull salmon-colour: legs, toes and claws reddish-
brown. The whole length is about, five inches and four-
fifths ; the wing from the carpal joint nearly three and three-
eighths : tail, which is slightly forked, about two and a half.
In the hen the bill is brown : red is wholly wanting—the
general colour above being dull olive-brown, darkest on the
head and slightly mottled on the hack, the feathers there
having a darker middle and being (as well as the upper wing
and upper tail-coverts) edged with greenish-olive; the other
wing-coverts are dusky brown, edged, as on the tertials, with
dull brownish-white; the quills are as in the cock, hut edged
with greenish; the lower parts generally are dull brownish-
white, streaked with hair-brown—lightest on the chin, which
is bounded by a brown stripe descending from either corner
of the lower mandible, while a series of brown streaks begins
on the throat; these increase in breadth on the breast, which
is tinged with buff, and pass along the sides of the body to
the flanks.
The young (and examples occurring in Britain may he
expected not to have assumed mature plumage) resemble the
adult female, hut the olive-coloured edges of the feathers are
yellower and broader. In this state the birds bear a very great
likeness to the not uncommon hybrids between the Greenfinch
and the Linnet, and at present it seems impossible to
decide whether the bird described by Bis so as Fringilla
incerta was one of these crosses, an abnormal example of
Pyrrhula erythrina, or a variety of the Greenfinch in which,
from some unknown cause, all the yellow or green tints were
wanting. Several specimens, agreeing more or less closely
with the description of this supposed species, have been
obtained in England, and the majority of them have been
referred by Messrs. Sharpe and Dresser to the hybrid just
mentioned ; hut, whether that determination be correct or not,
there can he little doubt that the F. incerta is an imaginary
species.
PASSE11ES: FJUNGILLIPJF.
P y r r h u la e n u c l e a to r (Linnaeus*).
THE PINE-GROSBEAK.
Pyrrhula enucleator.
T h e P in e -G r o sb ea k is a very rare bird in this country,
though many instances of its having been observed here are
on record. Scarcely any of them, however, withstand a
critical examination, and out of some two dozen, hut four or
five at most seem to deserve serious attention. The earliest
of these is possibly that of a female, shot at Harrow-on-the-
Hill, and mentioned in former editions of this work as being
in the Author’s collection, whence it has passed to that of
Mr. Bond. Next there comes another hen-bird noticed in
* Loxia enucleator, Linuseus, Syst. Nat. Ed. 12, i. p. 299 (1/66).