FEMALE WHITE-WINGED CROSSBILL. 273 



We have placed this species in our subgenus Coccothraustes. It is 

 probably because he labored under the mistake that all the Grosbeaks 

 removed from Loxia had been placed in Pyrrhila by Temminck, that 

 Mr. Sabine has made it a Bullfinch : and in truth the bill very much 

 resembles those of that genus, so that the species is intermediate be- 

 tween the two. Mr. Swainson places it, together with the Blue Gros- 

 beak, Fringilla (Coecothraugtes) coerulea, in a new genus which he calls 

 Guiraca, but without as yet characterizing it. These species have, it is 

 true, a bill somewhat different from that of the typical Coccothraustes 

 (as may be seen by comparing this with the Evening Grosbeak), being 

 much less thick and turgid, and higher than broad ; the upper mandible 

 being larger than the lower, and covering its margins entirely, com- 

 pressed on the sides, making the ridge very distinct (not rounded above), 

 and curved fi-om the base, but at tip especially : the margins of both 

 are angular. The representation of the bill in Wilson's plate of the 

 male is remarkably exact. 



LOXIA LEUCOPTERA. 



FEMALE WHITE-WINGED CROSSBILL.* 



[Plate XV. Fig. 3.] 



Loxia leucoptcra, Gmei,. Si/si. i., p. 844, Sp. 12. Vieill. Gal. Ois. i., p. 56, PI. 52, 

 young Male. Nob. 06*. Sp. 84. Id. Cat. and Syti. Birds U. S. Sp. 195. — Loxia 

 falcirostra, Lath. Ind. p. 371, Sp. 2. — Le Bec-croisS leucoptire, Sonn. Buff. 

 XLVH., p. 65. Vieill. Notiv. Diet. Hist. Nat. 2d ed. iii., p. 339. — White-winged 

 Crossbill, L.\Tn. Si/n. ni., p. 108, Sp. 2. Id. Siippl. p. 148. Dixon, Vmj. t. 20, 

 p. 358, Female. Penn. Arct. Zool. ii., Sp. 208. 



The White-winged Crossbill, first made known by Latham in his cele- 

 brated Synopsis, was subsequently introduced on his authority into all 

 the huge compilations of the last century. Wilson gave us the first 

 figure of it, which is that of the male, and promised a representation of 

 the female, together with "such additional facts relative to its manners 

 as he might be able to ascertain." It is to fulfil Wilson's engagement 

 that we now give a correct figure of the other sex of this species, which 

 wc are also enabled to describe minutely in all its different states of 

 plumage. This has never before been done, though Vieillot, since Wil- 

 son's time has compiled some account of its habits, described the female, 

 and recently published a bad enough figure of the male in his Galerie 

 des Oiseauz. 



* See Wilson's American Ornithology, ii. p. 61, PI. 31, for the young Male 

 Vol. III.— 18 



