102 On the Bullfinches of Siberia and Japan. 



of Askold, opposite Vladivostok, To the mainland it is 

 doubtful whether it be more than an occasional visitor. 

 Dybovvski obtained a single example in the upper valley of 

 the Ussuri (Journ. £. Oru. 1876, p. 200), and the Abbe David 

 says (Ois. de la Chine, p. 349) that during the whole of his 

 residence in Pekin he only saw three or four examples. 

 Middendorff unquestionably obtained one example of P. 

 orientalis rosacea on the island of Udskoi in the most 

 westerly bay of the Sea of Okhotsk ; but that it was paired 

 with a female of P. vulgaris major, as he states, is very 

 questionable. Schrenck found both species (P. rosacea and 

 P. major) in the lower valley of the Amoor ; but Eadde failed 

 to find either P. rosacea or its subspecific ally P. orientalis, 

 so that we may safely assume it to be rare in that locality. 

 It is remarkable that whilst P. vulgaris is found as far south 

 as Asia Minor on the west, its eastern form has not occurred 

 further south than lat. 48° in the Ussuri valley. In this 

 valley all three species occur. I have an example of P. 

 cineracea pallida (the type) from lat. 48° in the Ussuri 

 valley, and one of P. orientalis was obtained by Dybowski 

 (as already mentioned) in lat. 43°. 



P. cineracea (either in the paler or darker form) has a 

 wide range. Severtzow obtained it at Vernoe (he gave me a 

 female from that locality) in long. 67° in Russian Turkestan, 

 and my Ussuri example was collected in long. 135°. Prje- 

 valski did not find any Black-headed Bullfinch in Mongolia; 

 but Severtzow gave me a skin of P. cineracea from the 

 Mongolian slopes of the Altai Mountains, though Tancre*s 

 collectors failed to find it there. It belongs to the pale 

 form, though it is somewhat intermediate. 



This geographical distribution of Pyrrhula presents one or 

 two very interesting features. The genus consists of eight 

 good species, four of which are confined to the Himalayan 

 range from Gilgit and Cashmir to Sikkim and the naountains 

 of Eastern Thibet, and are distinguished by not having black 

 heads. The subspecies are climatic forms, and present in 

 nearly every case the usual variation produced by the heavy 

 rainfall of Western Europe and the bright cold climate of 



