154 



ORNITHOLOGY OF NEPAL, 



coverts, saturate rich brown, with whitish shafts to each plume : lower back 

 and body below, white with narrow hastate marks on each plume of a dusky 

 hue : lining of wings and inner edge of the quills towards their bases, 

 immaculate buff : tail pure black : bill and legs, slaty blue ; pure and 

 plumbeous in lower mandible of bill : iris brown : sexes alike : size of 

 the last. 



Species 3rd. M. Lineoventer, bar bellied, nobis. 



Head, neck, body above, wings and tail, ruddy brown — more saturate 

 on the head and neck ; and paled nearly to whity brown on the rump and 

 tail : breast and belly white with frequent zigzag cross bars of black : vent 

 and under tail coverts, whitish and unmarked : bills and legs, plumbeous : 

 iris red : sexes alike : size of the two last. 



Remarks. These singular little birds cannot with propriety be ranged 

 under the genus Coccothraustes, nor yet under that of Ploceus ; for, as 

 CuviER, the institutor of the latter genus, justly affirms, the Plocei are distin- 

 guished by the straightness of the commissure of their bills.* But the fact 

 is, Cuvier's subgeneric characters are too vague to be of much practical 

 utility ; and the specific descriptions of most general works so summary as 

 to be nearly worthless. 



If species are worth describing and transcribing, they should be described 

 and transcribed adequately ; and if genera and subgenera are to be charac- 

 terised by three words, families and subfamilies should first be more fully and 

 exactly defined, the former characters being alwaj^s understood with strict 

 reference to the latter. Amongst the thick-billed Finches, there are some 

 o"bservable differences of structure both in the osseous frame work of the 

 body ^nd in the chylopoetic viscera — differences which, taken in conjunction 

 with thosfc of the whole external organs, might serve to separate these birds 

 much more naturally than has yet been done ; especially if the indications 



* Bdyd is a typhical Indian species of Ploceus, common in the tarai but nexier seen 

 in the Hills. Coccothraustes belongs to the cold regions : Ploceus to the hot ; Munia is 

 intermediate. 



