222 PRINGILLIDJE. 



character is usually very conspicuous. The same difference 

 obtains also in the adult males, while they may be besides 

 generally distinguished, as has been said already (page 217), 

 by the colour of the scapulars and middle of the back, which 

 in the American bird are of an almost uniform pitch-black, 

 as dark as or darker than the flight-feathers, and in freshly- 

 moulted examples present a very pleasing contrast on the 

 one side to the white wing-bars and on the other to the red 

 mantle and rump. 



The whole length of the male is five inches and three- 

 quarters ; the wing from the carpal joint three inches and 

 a half. The longest primaries are generally narrower and 

 more pointed in the present bird than in its Eastern repre- 

 sentative, and the height of the bill at the base rarely if 

 ever exceeds *3 in. The tapering form of this feature has 

 been before mentioned. 



That the present is the form entitled to the name of 

 " White-winged Crossbill " none can doubt, and the word 

 "American" added thereto in the last Edition of this work 

 is an encumbrance which requires a corresponding geogra- 

 phical epithet in the case of the preceding bird. That of 

 " European " then applied is misleading, for the head-quarters 

 of Loxia bifasciata are rather in Asia than Europe. When 

 the difference between the two forms was recognized by 

 British ornithologists, Newman proposed (Zool. p. 2300) to 

 call that of the Old World the "Two-barred Crossbill," 

 and this earliest distinctive name, though possibly not the 

 happiest that might have been chosen, has been accordingly 

 here retained for it, while the ancient style of the American 

 form is left unchanged.* 



* Certain writers, it may be remarked, for some recondite reason have removed 

 the Crossbills from the genus Loxia, but to the Editor it seems unquestionable 

 that L. curvirostra must be considered the type of that genus as founded by 

 Linnaeus, who, as was his wont, combined in his appellation the names by which 

 it had been before known to naturalists, while the derivation of the word Loxia 

 (from the Greek Ac|«?, wry) shows that it is unsuitable to any of the other groups 

 to which it has been applied. Some writers have also separated the Crossbills 

 from the Fringillida, and have given them the rank of a family under the 

 uame of Loxiidoz — a very needless division since they are must intimately 

 related t" many of the unquestionable Finches. 



