1862.] FEMALE OF CROSSOPTILON AURITUM. 287 
with the description of the C. auritum given by Pallas in his ‘ Zoo- 
graphia Rosso-Asiatica,’ vol. ii. p. 86. Pallas makes no mention of 
proportions and measurements, and, further, he tells us that the only 
skin he received from China had no legs; but the shape of the tail, 
with its eighteen side-feathers and four curved central feathers, 
answers very nearly, as well as the white throat and ear-plumes, the 
latter 1} inch long. But in general colour, and in many respects, 
they differ. Pallas’s bird has the black plumelets on the crown 
bluish black; throat and ears white; the neck, the whole body as 
far as the rump, together with the bases of the wings, of one uniform 
bluish leaden; interior quills same colour as the back; primaries 
brown, the second, third, and fourth being margined exteriorly with 
white; tail with the four central tail-feathers curved and comose, 
of a bluish black ; the four nearest rectrices on each side widest and 
entire, curved inwards, and nearly equal in length, blue at their ex- 
tremities, the rest of the side-feathers decreasing gradually in length, 
the greater part of their basal halves being white, the apical portions 
bluish black. 
Ours, from Peking, has the small plumes on the crown pur- 
plish black, bordered by an indistinct whitish occipital band. Throat 
and ears white. Neck deep shining black. Back, belly, and entire 
wings deep chocolate-brown ; vent silky and paler. Rump and tail 
dingy white, the stems of the tail-feathers deep chocolate-brown, the 
ends of the tail-feathers being more or less deeply tipped with pur- 
plish black, the four central feathers being comose, and the nine 
others on each side being almost equally graduate and curved inwards. 
Now the objections I take against considering this bird the female 
of C. auritum, Pall., arise first from its style of colouring: The 
male of C. auritum has the entire body a bluish leaden. In our 
bird, consequently, if a female of the same species, we might expect 
to find a uniform brown. But no; ours has a Slack neck and a 
whiterump. The white margins to the quills might be a sexual 
difference ; but it strikes me, from Pallas’s description, ours has 
much smaller and somewhat differently shaped wings. In the tail, 
too, we should expect greater similarity of colouring, if not of form. 
In the colouring of its tail C. awritum more nearly approaches the 
C. tibetanum, Hodgs. The four central feathers are bluish black ; 
the four next on each side, of nearly equal length, are tipped with 
blue ; whereas the entire tail of our bird is dingy white, tipped with 
purplish black, the four feathers next to the central ones being gra- 
duated in much the same proportion as those that follow. I think, 
therefore, after due deliberation, that our bird, which there seem to 
be valid reasons for considering a female, is a species the male of 
which will be more beautiful than either the C. tibetanum or the 
C. auritum. If I am rightly informed, our specimen hails from 
Mantchuria, whereas Pallas’s bird came from Mongolia, and Hodg- 
son’s from Thibet. For the present, therefore, I appropriate to 
myself the advantage of the doubt, and propose to introduce this as 
the female of a new species, which I propose to name Crossoptilon 
mantchuricum. 
