338 FEMALE WHITE-WINGED CROSSBILL. 
racter of the species; all the quills are slightly edged with 
paler, the tertials being also tipt with white; the under 
wing-coverts are of a dark silvery, as well as the whole inferior 
surface of the wing; the tail measures two and a half inches, 
being as usual composed of twelve feathers; it is black, and 
deeply emarginate, the feathers acute, and slightly edged 
with paler; the feet are short, rather robust, and blackish ; 
the tarsus five-eighths of an inch in length, somewhat sharp 
behind, with its covering entire before ; the toes are divided 
to the base, very short, the middle one considerably the longest, 
but much less than half an inch long, the lateral one subequal 
(all these being remarkable characters of the genus); the hind 
toe long, and stoutest; the nails strong, much curved, and sharp, 
the hind one the longest, and twice as large as the lateral. 
The male described by Latham, Wilson, and Vieillot as in 
full plumage, but which, with Temminck, we have good rea- 
sons for believing to be between one and two years old, differs 
from the female in being a trifle larger, and of a crimson red 
where she is olive grey ; the base of the plumage is also con- 
siderably darker, approaching to black on the head, which 
colour predominates in several parts of the plumage, round 
the eye, on the front, in a broad line curving and widening 
from the eye, each side of the neck, and appearing distinctly 
on the back, where it generally forms a kind of band descend- 
ing from the base of the wing: the rump is of a beautiful 
rose-red; the black of the wings and tail is deeper; the white, 
pure, and more extended ; the lining of the quills, and espe- 
cially of the tail-feathers, more conspicuous ; the belly is of a 
pure whitish, much less streaked, &c. 
The bird which, from analogy, we take for the adult male, 
though we have no positive evidence for deciding whether it 
is in the passage to or from the preceding, differs only in 
having a light buff orange tinge where the other has crimson: 
it agrees with it in all its minute markings, the patch on the 
sides of the head is better defined, and the wings and tail are 
of a still deeper black, the edges of the quills and tail-feathers 


