1863*] 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 H 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, Pali,, 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 black neck and a 

 white rump. 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. auritum 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. 



