SCARLET BULLFINCH. 3 



and from this I will make some extracts. I do this the more 

 willingly, as their remarks refer to a bird about which much uncer- 

 tainty has existed up to modern days, I mean the FringiUa incerta 

 of Risso. Mr. Dresser, in his "Birds of Europe," maintains that 

 the birds taken in England and baptized F. incerta, are merely hybrids 

 between the Common Linnet and the Grecnfiuch, but that the real 

 F. incerta is the female of Carpodacus erythrinus. Mr. Dresser states 

 that neither Mr. Gould nor myself had alluded to this bird. Mr. D. 

 is, however, mistaken. If he will refer to my book, vol. iii., p. 119, 

 he will find the following note: — "FringiUa incerta, Risso, {Chlorospiza 

 incerta, Bonaparte,) is only the young of Pyrrhula erythrina." The 

 young birds being very like the adult females, both have probably 

 passed as P. incerta. 



"The history of this bird," says M. Jaubert, "is certainly one of 

 the most singular that we have given in this work. Described in 

 1788 by Gmelin, and after having successively passed from one genus 

 to another, we find it in 1853 perfectly fixed on the one hand with 

 the Bullfinches, of which it has all the characters, and on the other 

 with the Grosbeaks, where the inattention of authors had till these 

 days maintained it. Singular fortune for a type contained in nearly 

 all collections. M. Degland, in the first instance, having discovered 

 a Bullfinch in a young Chlorospiza incerta, constituted it, but not 

 without hesitation, his Pyrrhula incerta (Orn. Eur., t. 11, p. 540), 

 which produced a sharp admonition from Prince Charles Bonaparte. 

 Could there be any reason for M. Degland to claim later a priority so 

 lightly accorded by the Prince in the 'Revue de Zoologie,' 1854, on a 

 question in which the author had only confirmed the existence of a 

 species which I upset definitely some months later, by showing the 

 identity of Chlorospiza incerta, Bonaparte, with Frytlvrospiza erythrina, 

 Bonaparte? I am supported by the following reasons: 1. Between the 

 two birds there does not exist a single distinctive character to separate 

 them. Accidental variations of the beak are of no importance when 

 we compare a series of individuals. 2. The female of the adult Scarlet 

 Bullfinch is identical with that of Chlorosjnza incerta kept in a cage. 

 Their eggs are the same. 3. The young resemble each other. 4. We 

 have seen accidentally the bird assume the green when at liberty, and 

 the red in captivity. 5, The adult Chlorospiza incerta is never seen 

 in the fields; it is the child of our aviaries. 6. Analogy between this 

 phenomenon of captivity and that which takes place among the species 

 which take in the same red colour in confinement. 7. Lastly, the 

 native country of F. incerta is unknown. It is now a decided question." 



We believe the opinion which was arrived at by M, Jaubert was 



