594 Birds of anomalous Plumage. 



only other British species might then be called (instead of 

 Loxia enucleator) Densirostra enucleator, the pine thick- 

 bill. The name Loxia has been employed by different authors 

 to denote several genera : in Shaw's General Zoology it is ap- 

 plied to the thickbills and to the grosbeaks ; by Temminck it 

 is applied to the crossbills, and by Linnaeus to all three ! This 

 confusion might easily be avoided, if the thickbills (of which 

 there are only two British species) were called Densirostra : 

 the grosbeaks (of which the haw grosbeak may be mentioned 

 as an example) might be called Coccothraustes [this name 

 Selby adopts], and to the crossbills might be applied the ap- 

 pellation Crucirostra, which name is adopted in Shaw's Zoo- 

 logy* Of this genus there are, I believe, only three species, 

 the common crossbill (C. vulgaris Shaw), the parrot cross- 

 bill (C. pinetorum Meyer), and the white-winged crossbill, 

 (C. leucoptera Shaw). Selby, in the first edition of his 

 British Ornithology, calls the coalhood " bullfinch grosbeak,'* 

 and in the second " common bullfinch ;" thus in the first 

 instance making bullfinch the specific, and in the second 

 the generic, name : but either way the name is improper, for 

 the bird is not a finch at all, and has no more right to the 

 appellation than the storm petrel (Thalassidroma pelagica) oir 

 the pied flycatcher (Muscicapa luctu^sa), both of which have 

 been called finches 1 In these days of wholesale changes 

 there may be some who look on (or rather perhaps away from) 

 every alteration with suspicion or dislike; but it is but fair 

 that they should state their reasons for discarding any new 

 proposal, and not do so because it is new. — S, D. W, Sept, 

 1834'. \_Post'marh, Burton on Trent, Sept, 16.] 



A Nest of Bull/inches \_Coalhood Thickbills, as S. D. W, 

 above' advises to name them"], in which there were Three Snow- 

 white young ones, and One of the Common Colour, was once 

 found, by a person whom I know, in his garden : I believe 

 that he had them preserved. — A. Clifford, Near Stamford, 

 {Received, Dec. 13. 1833.] 



A Live Young Rook, almost perfectly White, was last year 

 brought to me. It was of a dirty white colour, and, what 

 rather surprised me, its beak and legs were also of this colour. 

 I had wished to bring it up ; but, to my great disappointment, 

 it was killed by accident. It was quite young, and I have 

 little doubt that, had it lived to attain its full plumage, it 

 would have been milk-white. The person who had brought 

 it to me said, that he had taken one or two other young ones 

 of the natural colour out of the same nest. — A. Clifford. Near 

 Stamford. {Received, Dec. 13. 1833.] 



White, in the letter to Pennant, dated " Selborne, March 



