56 Mr. N. A. Severtzow (/w^e 



Kara-su and on the Pamir Alichur in the second half of 

 August. It is common. 



23. Carpodacus erythrinus (Pall.). 



The Scarlet Grosbeak was seen at the same time throughout 

 the whole Pamir. 



24. Carpodacus mongolicus, Swinh, 

 Erythrospiza incarnata, Sev. 



This Rose- Finch breeds on rocks in the North Alai range, 

 and throughout almost the whole region. In the middle of 

 August the young were only just able to fly ; and the old 

 birds moult in September, when they hide themselves. I saw 

 them most frequently on the Alai and in the Pamir, and occa- 

 sionally throughout the whole Tian-shan. Prjevalsky found 

 them in Ordoss, on the river Hoang-ho, and along the 

 southern borders of the Mongolian plateau, whence came 

 Swinhoe's type specimens. The eastern limit of this species 

 is near the meridian of Pekin. It inhabits the woodless 

 rocks and the steep ravines of the plateaux. In Turkestan 

 this bird belongs in summer to the upper alpine region, and 

 lives above the highest limit of the tree-vegetation, but goes a 

 little lower to breed. It stays on the heights in autumn as 

 long as possible, in fact until the snow drives it down ; but 

 even then only a very few descend to the cultivated regions, 

 where I shot them in October near the river. 



This species is a very near relative to C. githagineus., a bird 

 known and described long ago, which lives in the more 

 southern deserts and is found from the Canary Islands, 

 through the northern Sahara, Egypt, north of Arabia, Persia, 

 and Beluchistan to Sindh. M. Fedchenko, having found C. 

 mongolicus in the mountains of the Lower Alai, mistook it 

 for the true C. githagineus, and insisted on the strange 

 occurrence of such a characteristic type of the Saharan fauna 

 in the Alai mountains. He disputed my specific separation of 

 C. mongolicus (under the name oiE. incarnata) from C.githa- 

 gineus^ and referred to the authority of Cabanis, who told 

 him that both birds were of the same species. But this is an 

 error. When I got the first specimens of C. incarnatus I 



