158 CRIMSON NUT-CRACKER. 



breast, upper tail-covers, and half way down the 

 flanks, are of a hright crimson, and appear glossy, 

 as if polished, but without any coloured reflections. 

 The tail is of a dull red, but the inner half of the 

 lateral feathers are black ; the quills are nearly so. 

 All the rest of the plumage is a deep uniform sepia 

 brown. Bill, deep black ; legs, brown ; claws, long, 

 slender, and but little curved. 



Total length, 5f inches ; bill from the gape, ^ ; 

 wings, 2 T 8 o ; tail beyond, 1^- ; from the base, 2^ ; 

 tarsus, f . 



If, as naturalists conceive, the typical character 

 of the finches is in the strength and conic form of 

 the bill, then the bird before us, possessing both in 

 the most eminent degree of perfection (fig. 1), must 

 stand at the head of the entire family. And this is 

 the view we have taken of its station, resulting from 

 the analysis of that division of the finches to which 

 it unquestionably belongs. Of all the forms in other 

 countries we yet know of, it comes nearest to the 

 South American hard-bills, forming the sub-genus 

 Coccoborus ; while, on the other hand, there can be 

 no question, we think, of its close relationship to the 

 sub-genus Dertroides : from this we pass to Sper- 

 mophagO) from which nature seems to return again 

 to her first or most pre-eminent type, by means of thf 

 haw-finches of temperate climates ( ' Coccoihraustes ; 

 and the hard-bills of South America, Coccoborus. 

 It is among these latter birds, indeed, that we have 

 the nearest approach to that now before us. The 



