398 Queries attd Answers, 



as a dark circle ; whereas in the one I send it appears lighter than the rest 

 of the bird. What could have produced this change ? — age ? They were 

 fed with the same seed, though in different cages, each having a female 

 canary for a companion, of which companion, by the by, they neither of 

 them took any notice. — Can you refer me to any work that will give me 

 any account of these birds, or can you ascertain their generic and specific 

 names ? I am, Sir, yours, &c. — Thomas Edgworth. Wrexham, Dec. 27. 

 1831. 



The bird our correspondent has sent us is a specimen of the Loxia 

 fasciata [doubtless expressive of the crimson band or fascia across its 

 throat] of Brown's Illustrations of Zoology, p. 64. pi. 27., upper figure, and 

 is described by Dr. Latham, in his Index OrnithologicuSy in the Synopsis, and 

 in his General History : it is also figured in the Naturalist^ s Miscellany, 

 vol.ii. pi. 56., under the name of Loxia jugularis [still in allusion to the 

 marking of its jugulum or throat]. It is a native of Africa. From the 

 blood-red colour of the band on the throat of the male, this bird has been 

 called by some the cut-throat sparrow. The female is without the crimson 

 band, and the lower figure on Brown's plate represents the female of this 

 species, although the author has called that bird by a different name. Nor 

 does it belong to the genus Loxia, as that genus is at present restricted : it 

 is in truth a i^ringllla. Dr. Latham has recorded that a male in the collec- 

 tion of Lord Stanley [probably one of the birds transferred there as above 

 stated] had the band on the throat of an orange colour. The females have 

 produced eggs in confinement in this country, but we have not been able 

 to ascertain that any one has succeeded in breeding young birds. The 

 uniform dark brown colour of the specimen sent us by our correspondent 

 is one of those changes occasionally produced by confinement, and parti- 

 cular food. We have known it occur in the goldfinch [Carduelis com- 

 munis Cuvierl, and still more frequently in the bullfinch [Pyrrhula vulgaris 

 Temminck'], when these are fed on hemp-seed. — S. T. P. 



In Insect Transformations, it is the Tail of the Caterpillar which becomes the 

 Head of the Butterfly, (p. 206.) — Sir, A young lady of my acquaintance 

 was once exceedingly surprised, and kept on the very tiptoe of anxious ex- 

 pectation, by being told, that, if she would go to her friend's stable the follow- 

 ing morning, at a certain hour, she might see a horse with his head where his 

 tail should be. Accordingly, she repaired to the stable, at the appointed 

 time, fully prepared to see some strange monster, with a head growing out 

 of the rump j or an animal, perhaps, almost as outre as the one supposed 

 by Horace in the opening of his Art of Poetry. To her no small disap- 

 pointment, however, when the stable-door opened, there was her own 

 favourite pony, standing with his rump to the manger, and his head, of 

 course, towards the lower part of the stall. This trifling incident was, 

 somehow or other, brought to my recollection on reading the notice of 

 T. C. in your last Number (p. 206.), who states that " it is the tail of the 

 caterpillar which becomes the head of the butterfly." I apprehend that 

 either some hoax or quibble (as in the case of the horse alluded to) must 

 be intended in this statement, or else that not a little confusion has been 

 undesignedly caused by transposing, or otherwise improperly employing, 

 such terms as " head," " tail," " top," " bottom," or the like. At all 

 events, T. C.'s statement, as it now stands, must surely be erroneous. The 

 caterpillar of the common tortoise-shell butterfly ( Vanessa urticae), for ex- 

 ample, suspends itself by the tail, and hangs with its head downwards ; and 

 it is this head, or (as it now hangs) lower part of the caterpillar, which 

 becomes the head of the chrysalis ; bearing on one side a resemblance to a 

 face or mask, beneath which are incased also the head and thorax of the 

 butterfly. The butterfly bursts the chrysalis towards its head or lower end 

 (lower, I mean, relatively to the position in which it hangs), and comes out 



