me 
bi hey PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. 355 
edges to the dorsal feathers also wear off and the whole upper surface 
consequently looks darker than in wiuter, features nicely illustrated 
by a fine 3, with black bill, collected in Ussuri, March 27, 1881 (U.S. 
Nat. Mus., No. 111358). The gray nape of this bird explains the cor- 
responding portion of Pallas’s deseription of the “variety 6 1.” from 
the Kurile Islands, ‘“‘vertice nigricante; cervice cano-albido.” The ab- 
sence of rosy color, which in Pallas’s bird seems to be replaced by cin- 
namon, is not so easily accounted for, though I have before me a speci- 
men from Kamtchatka (U. S. Nat. Mus., No. 21126, Wm. Stimpson’s 
coll.) which, in every respect, agrees with Pallas’s description, but this 
bird has apparently originally been preserved in alcohol, which seems 
to have extracted the rosy color. The fact that the nape of J. brunneo- 
nucha becomes gray in summer may possibly have misled Prof. Lich- 
tenstein to determine two birds in the Berlin Museum said to have 
come from the Kurile Islands as L. griseonucha (Nomencl. Av. Mus. 
Berol., 1854, p. 47), though “ Kurile Islands” may be a lapsus for ‘“‘Aleu- 
tian Islands.” Atany rate, L. griseonucha does not occur in the former. 
Chloris kawarahiba (TrMM.). (283) 
Two specimens of the larger Japanese Green Finch, viz, Nos. 224 and 
225, 6 and 2, Hakodate, November 11 and October 18, 1883 (U.S. 
Nat. Mus., Nos. 120506-7). For dimensions, etc., see the following species. 
Chloris kawarahiba minor (TEMM. and SCHLEG.). (284) 
The Eastern Green Finches are still in a state of confusion, and though 
having quite a number of specimens before me I have not been able to 
solve all the questions or clear all the doubts. I have satisfied myself 
as to the correctness of a few conclusions, which differ somewhat from 
the opinion generally accepted. 
In the first place the smaller Japanese Green Finch is not identical 
with the Chinese Chloris sinica (LiN.). They agree in size, but differ con- 
siderably in coloration. In the last-mentioned bird there is very little, 
if any green in the yellow that spreads over the under surface from 
the chest backward. On the contrary, the yellow is strongly suffused 
with atawny brown. In Ch. sinica, furthermore, the great upper wing- 
coverts are brown, while in Ch. kawarahiba minor they are olive-green, 
more or less suffused with yellow; and, finally, in the Chinese bird 
the pale margins to the inner secondaries and the tertiaries are con- 
siderably wider than in the smaller Japanese form. Whether specifi- 
cally or only subspecifically distinct is impossible for me to say at 
present, but this question is comparatively unimportant. The essential 
thing at the present stage is the fact that the two forms are separable. 
Strange to say, although the smaller Japanese form is almost uni- 
versally called Ch. sinica, and nearly all authors admit the distinctness 
of a smaller and a larger species in Japan proper, the two latter forms 
are much more difficult to separate and are much more closely allied. 
1 wits 
