212 FRITOILLID^E. 



nape, back, and scapulars black, each feather margined with light 

 brown ; rump rosy red with dusky tips ; upper tail-coverts brown, 

 with black shafts ; wing-coverts dark brown with pale brown 

 margins, the lesser series washed with rosy ; quills and tail dark 

 brown, very narrowly margined paler ; a streak behind the eye and 

 the sides of the neck and of the body pale brown, streaked 

 with dark brown ; cheeks, ear-coverts, chin, throat, and breast 

 crimson, most of the feathers with white terminal shaft-streaks : 

 abdomen ashy brown, sparingly streaked with black; under tail- 

 coverts brown, margined with pink. 



Female. The whole upper plumage, wings and tail, sides of the 

 head and neck dark brown, each feather margined with pale brow T n 

 and those of the rump with dull greenish ; lower plumage pale 

 fulvous with narrow black streaks, the breast more or less suffused 

 with buff. 



Bill horny brown. 



Length 7*5 ; tail 3*2 ; wing 4*4; tarsus '9 ; bill from gape *6. 



Sharpe has separated as a subspecies, under the name of P. liumii, 

 a pale race of this bird with the red parts of the head and breast 

 rosy, not crimson, and the brown of the back quite pale. The 

 frontal band is also much broader, extending back as far as the 

 middle of the eye. The female has the rump-feathers broadly 

 margined with olive-yellow. In the British Museum there is a 

 pair of these birds procured in Kansu ; one bird from Tibet ; 

 another from the " Borenda Pass ; " and a fifth from Kotgarh. 

 Altogether I am not satisfied that this race, as found in the Hima- 

 layas, is worthy of separation from P. punicea. 



Distribution. The Himalayas from Kashmir to Sikhim, at eleva- 

 tions of from 10,000 to 17,000 feet, according to season, and 

 extending into Tibet and Western China. 



Habits, fyc. Stoliczka found this Finch in Spiti and Ladak 

 searching after food at the camping-grounds, and he also records 

 the finding of a nest made of coarse grass and placed in a furze 

 bush. The eggs were dirty white or greenish with some dark 

 brown spots. 



Genus PKOPASSER, Hodgs., 1844. 



The genus Propasser belongs to the Bose-Finches, the males of 

 which are characterized by rose-coloured plumage, and the females 

 by streaked brown plumage. The birds of this genus may be 

 separated from those of the next genus Carpodacus, by the presence 

 of a supercilium in both sexes and by the bluntness of the 

 wing, the secondaries falling short of the tip of the wing by a 

 distance less than the length of the tarsus. The bill of Propasser 

 is of much the same shape as that of Hcematospiza, but smaller in 

 comparison to the size of the head. 



