326 NOVELTIES. 



As regards the adult males, a child would separate them 

 from those of badius, but I am not so sure about the females 

 and young; and what rather perplexes me is that I have a 

 female from the Tipperah hills, which seems intermediate 

 between the two races. The birds are true Micronisi, both as 

 to legs and feet and bill. The third quill is the longest, and 

 the first four are conspicuously emarginate on the inner webs, 

 and a trace of this on the fifth, and the third to the fifth con- 

 spicuously emarginate on the outer webs. The birds do cer- 

 tainly differ very markedly from badius, and, if admitted to 

 be distinct, may stand as above. 



Since this was in type, I have received a letter from Mr. R. 

 Bowdler Sharpe, concurring in the propriety of defining this 

 well-marked eastern race of M. badius. 



Propasser ambiguus, Sp. Nov.? 



Male. — Wing, 30; lores, chin, throat, cheeks, and supercilium, crimson ; 

 breast, abdomen, vent, lower and upper tall-coverts, very pale, rosy, all 

 but the latter with very narroto brown shajt stripes ; top and back of the 

 head, and back, dark brown; feathers narrowly and inconspicuously 

 margined pale brown. 



Female. — Above and below precisely like the female of rhodochlamys, 

 but the pale margins of quills and coverts slightly more rufous, and 

 bill about half the size, 'and tarsi about half the thickness. 



I received from Mr. Wilson, better known as " Mountaineer," 

 a pair of Rose-finches, which appear to me to be distinct from 

 any yet described, and which the above brief diagnosis suffi- 

 ciently, I think, characterizes. 



The Rose-finch group is fairly represented in my museum^ and 

 I have carefully compared these specimens with the following 

 species: — Carpodacus rubicilla, C. erythrinus, Propasser thura, 

 P. rhodochlamys, P. rhodochrous, P. Edwardsii, Verreaux 

 ( = saturatus, Blanford), Procarduelis nipalensis and Procarduelis 

 rubescens. I have no specimens, and indeed have never seen any 

 of either rhodopeplus, Vigors, or pidcherrimus, Hodgson, but I 

 have the original descriptions of both, and Hodgson's figures of the 

 one and Bonaparte's of the other. It cannot be rhodopeplus, which 

 is considerably larger (wing 3*25 to 3*35 according to different 

 authors), which has the eye-streak, chin, throat, breast, and 



