Mr. E. Blyth un the Genus Pyrrhula. 441 



of separation by Temminck, who includes the Pyrrhula vulgaris 

 in his list of European birds inhabiting Japan, published in the 

 Supplement to his ' Manuel d^Ornithologie/ Two European 

 races, however, differing constantly and considerably in size, 

 have long been familiarly known to the Continental bird-catchers 

 and dealers in Piping Bullfinches, viz. " Le Pionne" and " Le 

 Double Pionne" of the French. The former of these, which 

 alone is met with in the British Islands, is of course the P. vul- 

 garis of Ray, while the latter is probably the true Loxia pyrrhula 

 of Linnaeus, inasmuch as it seems to be the only one that in- 

 habits the Scandinavian peninsula. 



The first species recognized as unequivocally distinct from the 

 preceding (which have been more or less regarded as varieties 

 only of the same species) was the P. erythrocephala of Vigors. 

 This was described, with other birds from the Himalayan region, 

 westward of Nepal, in the ' Proceedings of the Zoological So- 

 ciety^ for 1831, p. 174, and figured in Gould^s 'Century of 

 Himalayan Birds,' published soon afterwards. 



In the more eastern Himalayas (Nepal, Sikhim, and Bootau) 

 another strongly marked Bullfinch, of more sombre colouring 

 than the rest, occurs. This was first made known by Mr. Hodg- 

 son in the 'Asiatic Researches' in 1836 (vol. xix. p. 155), under 

 the name P. nipalensis. Much more I'ecently, in the ' Proceed- 

 ings of the Zoological Society' for 1857, Mr. Gould has de- 

 scribed a P. aurantiaca from Kashmir, which, with the two last 

 and also the Japanese race or species, have been figured in his 

 grand publication on the Birds of Asia. 



Lastly, a fourth Himalayan species was briefly described, in 

 the last volume of ' The Ibis,' in an extract from a letter which 

 I addressed to the Editor-, under the name P. erithacus *. This 

 bird was shot by my friend Lieut. Beavan, of the late 63rd 

 B. N. I., on Tongla Mountain, on the frontiers of Sikhim and 

 Nepal, at an elevation of 10,000 feet above the sea-level. One 

 specimen only was obtained, which is here figured, and the 

 female is still a desideratum. Examples of P. nipalensis were 

 procured in the same locality. It does not appear that P. nipa- 



* In the description given of this species (Ibis, 1862, p. 390, line 1), 

 the word " bill" should be substituted for "belly." 



VOL. v. 2 H 



