18 FEMALE PINE BULLFINCH.
We have nothing.to add, to Wilson’s history of this Mrd.
Although after the example of.Temminck and others,- we place
this species at the head of the Bullfinches, we cannot, avoid
remarking that its natural affinities connect it jnost intimately
with the Crossbills^ being allied to them elos.ely in fts hamts^and
in its form, plumage, general garb, apd even in its anomalous
change of colours. 'The bill however*,. precisely that of a Bullfinchf
induces us to leave it -in that gepus, • between . whyh and the“
ferossbills it forms a beautiful link: the obtuse point of the lower;
mandible, but especially the small, porrecty setaceous feajhefs
^p-ering the nostrils, as in theSet latter, eminently .disfiagffish it
from all others of it^; own genus; These., characters induced
Cuvier to propose it as. a subgenus, under the name ai. Corythus,
and Vieillot as an entirely dietijnet genus, which he first named
Pinicolq, but has since changed it to Strobilophaga. These authors
hayev of 4 cours^. b^een followed by the Uertnan and Englishrorni-
"thologists-'of the new ■ school, who appear to consider themselves
bound. to acknomCdge jeveryt genus proposed, from i whatefeeiL
quarter, or howfever minute and variable the characters on which
it is^based.