128 MR. A. NEWTON ON FRINGILLA INCERTA. [April 8, 
taken for them. Neither does the colouring of the figure well agree 
with my specimen, which, when fresh from the water, had a dark- ~ 
bluish-grey back, with sides and belly of a silvery grey, reflecting a 
brassy lustre in certain directions of the light. The dorsal, pectoral, 
and caudal fins were a deep black ; the ventral and anal fins a silvery 
grey. The indigo-blue spots in pairs near the lateral line in the 
figure seem to occupy the places of colourless mucous pores, which 
were observed in my specimen at irregular intervals near that line. 
From this fish were obtained two species of Entozoa, viz. some 
large specimens of a Distoma, and several examples of a Tzenioid 
worm, measuring altogether some feet in length. 
2. REMARKS ON THE FRINGILLA INCERTA OF Risso. 
By Aurrep Newron, M.A., F.L.S., F.Z.S. 
Mr. George Dawson Rowley has entrusted to me, for exhibition to 
the Society, a little bird which was brought to him alive at Brighton 
on the 13th of March last, having been caught in a net in that 
neighbourhood. It was ascertained by dissection to be a female; 
and, after examining it, I cannot but suspect that it may have been 
from specimens similar to it that the descriptions of the female of 
the so-called Fringilla incerta of Risso and other Continental writers 
have been drawn up. I have never before seen a specimen which 
agrees with these accounts, nor have I had access to the original 
authorities; but the compilation from them published by Dr. Degland 
(Ornith. Europ. i. p. 202) so accurately describes the present ex- 
ample that I do not hesitate to quote it. 
“‘ Femelle: Dessus de la téte, derriére du cou, scapulaires, dos et 
sus-caudales d’un brun olivatre, plus clair a la téte, nuancé de gris 
sur les cétés du cou et sur le haut du dos; poitrine et flancs d’un 
gris olivatre, avec des taches longitudinales plus foncées ; abdomen 
et sous-caudales d’un blane sale; rectrices et rémiges, d’un noir oli- 
vAtre, avec le bord externe liséré de vert grisAtre, les premiéres ter- 
minées de gris sale, ce qui forme deux bandes sur les ailes ; rectrices 
de la couleur des rémiges; pieds d’un brun fauve.” 
At the time of his writing the above passage, Dr. Degland states 
that the Chlorospiza incerta was unknown to him; but he subse- 
quently says (op. cit. ii. p. 540) that he had obtained a male, 
taken in a net near Lille, in September, 1849, and adds that he was 
previously wrong in calling the species a Chlorospiza, for it was 
evidently a true Pyrrhula. This last assertion awakened the ire or 
the ridicule of Prince Bonaparte, who persists (Revue Critique, 
pp. 31, 32) in his former assignment of the bird to Chlorospiza* 
(Comp. List of Birds, 1838, p. 30), as he also does later (Consp. 
* There is apparently a misprint of 1852 for 1832, as the date of the establish- 
ment of this genus, in Mr. G. R. Gray’s most useful ‘Catalogue of the Genera 
and Subgenera of Birds,’ p. 77. In the ‘List of the Specimens of British Ani- 
mals,’ &c., part iii, Birds, p. 100, the latter date is given, with the reference 
‘Pr. Bonap. Sagg. Distr. Met. Anim. Vert.’ ; but I have been unable to consult the 
original work. 
