274 FEMALE WHITE-WINGED CROSSBILL. 



The English name was bestowed by its discoverer, the scientific was 

 imposed on it by the compiler Gmelin, who like the Daw in the fable, 

 though with much better success, appropriated to himself the borrowed 

 plumes of others, making Latham's new species his own by being the 

 first to give them scientific names, which the discoverer himself was 

 afterwards obliged to adopt in his Index Orniihologicus. In the present 

 instance however he took the liberty of altering Gmelin's name, most 

 probably with the view of giving one analogous to that of Loxia curviros- 

 tra, and indicative of the remarkable form of the bill. That character 

 having since been employed as generic, the propriety of Latham's 

 change has ceased to exist, and in fact the advantage is altogether on 

 the side of Gmelin. We have therefore respected the right of priority, 

 even in the case of an usurper. 



The female White-winged Crossbill is five inches and three-quarters 

 long, and nearly nine in extent; the bill is more than five-eightha long, 

 of a dark horn color paler on the edges ; as is the case in the whole 

 genus, it is very much compressed throughout, but especially at the 

 point, where the edges almost unite into one : both mandibles are 

 curved (the lower one upwards) from the base, the ends crossing each 

 other ; the upper has its ridge distinct, and usually crosses to the left 

 in both sexes, and not, as Wilson appears to intimate, generally in one 

 sex only ; the lower mandible is considerably shorter ; the tongue is 

 short, cartilaginous, and entire : the irides are of a very dark hazel ; 

 the small setaceous feathers covering the nostrils, which is one of the 

 characteristics of the genus, are whitish gray ; the bottom of the 

 plumage is everywhere slate color ; the head, and all the upper parts 

 down to the rump, are of a grayish green strongly tinged with olive, 

 each feather being marked with black in the centre, giving the plumage 

 a streaked appearance, as represented in the plate ; the rump is pure 

 pale lemon yellow, the upper tail-coverts are blackish margined with 

 whitish olive ; the front, and a broad line over and round the eye and 

 bill, are slightly distinguished from the general color of the head by 

 the want of olivaceous, being grayish white, and as the feathers are 

 \eij small, appear minutely dotted with black: the curved blackish 

 spot, more apparent in the colors of the male, is slightly indicated on 

 the sides of the head ; the sides of the head and neck, the throat, and 

 the breast, are of a grayish white, also streaked with blackish, and 

 somewhat tinged with yellowish on the sides of the breast ; the flanks 

 become of a dingy yellowish gray, and have large dull blackish blotches ; 

 the belly and vent are of a much purer whitish, and the streaks are 

 on that part long, narrow, and well defined ; the under tail-coverts are 

 blackish, with broad white margins, the wings are three inches and a 

 half long, reaching when closed to the last of the tail-coverts ; the first 

 three primaries are subequal and longest, the fourth being but little 



