176 FKINGILLID.K. 



shade of the same, which becomes still less deep on the belly 

 and dies away, over the vent and on the lower tail-coverts, 

 into a dull salmon-colour : legs, toes and claws reddish- 

 brown. The whole length is about five inches and four- 

 lifths ; the wing from the carpal joint nearly three and three- 

 eighths : tail, which is slightly forked, about two and a half. 



In the hen the bill is brown : red is wholly wanting — the 

 general colour above being dull olive-brown, darkest on the 

 head and slightly mottled on the back, the feathers there 

 having a darker middle and being (as well as the upper wing 

 and upper tail-coverts) edged with greenish-olive ; the other 

 wing-coverts are dusky brown, edged, as on the tertials, with 

 dull brownish-white ; the quills are as in the cock, but edged 

 with greenish ; the lower parts generally are dull brownish- 

 white, streaked with hair-brown — lightest on the chin, which 

 is bounded by a brown stripe descending from either corner 

 of the lower mandible, while a series of brown streaks begins 

 on the throat ; these increase in breadth on the breast, which 

 is tinged with buff, and pass along the sides of the body to 

 the flanks. 



The young (and examples occurring in Britain may be 

 expected not to have assumed mature plumage) resemble the 

 adult female, but the olive-coloured edges of the feathers are 

 yellower and broader. In this state the birds bear a very great 

 likeness to the not uncommon hybrids between the Green- 

 finch and the Linnet, and at present it seems impossible to 

 decide whether the bird described by Risso as Fringilla 

 incerta was one of these crosses, an abnormal example of 

 Pyrrhula erythrina, or a variety of the Greenfinch in which, 

 from some unknown cause, all the yellow or green tints were 

 wanting. Several specimens, agreeing more or less closely 

 with the description of this supposed species, have been 

 obtained in England, and the majority of them have been 

 referred by Messrs. Sharpe and Dresser to the hybrid just 

 mentioned ; but, whether that determination be correct or not, 

 there can be little doubt that the F. incerta is an imaginary 



species. 



