156 



ORNITHOLOGY OF NEPAL. 



forked and gradated. Colour and size — -male, brown-smeared slaty blue, 

 (like common slate stone) with black rump, wings and tails all reflecting a 

 brilliant purplish blue gloss ; cap picked out with dusky, and a band of the 

 same hue round the base of the bill ; a white spot under the eye ; band 

 across the rump, lower belly, vent, and under tail coverts white ; outer web 

 of the last tertiaries fiery red ; bill greenish horn, with black tip ; legs 

 fleshy brown ; iris brown ; 8J to 9 inches long by 10 to 11 wide, and 1| to 

 1|- oz. in weight. 



Female rather less, exactly like the male, save only that the outer web 

 of the last quill towards the body is invariably yellow, and not fiery red as 

 in the male. The young, at first, want this distinctive sexual mark. 

 Habitat northern and central regions. 



Pyrrhula? Epauletta. Epauletted Pyrrhula, nobis. 



Form somewhat anomalous, uniting the wings, tail and feet of Fringilla 

 with the bill of Pyrrhula. Bill strictly Pyrrhuline, but rather longer and 

 less gibbous than in Vulgaris, with a sharp tooth on the tomial margin of 

 the loiver mandible, near its base ; wings scarcely exceeding the base of the \ 

 tail, 3 and 4 sub-equal and longest ; 1 and 2 distinctly gradated. Tail 

 medial, firm, even ; the quills divaricating and pointed at their tips ; tarsi 

 rather elevate and nearly smooth: toes medial, compressed; laterals and 

 hind sub-equal ; outer fore connected to the joint: nails acute. Colour and 

 size. Male— black with the occiput bright silken yellow: a ruddy yel- 

 low tuft at the bend of the wings (unde nomen) ; the tertiaries white, par- 

 tially or wholly, on the inner web ; vent more or less concolorous with the 

 epaulettes ; bill black ; legs fleshy gray ; iris brown ; size 6^ inches by 9, 

 and f oz. 



Fe«iale, of the size of the male: top of the head and ears greenish 

 yellow; dorg.al neck and top of the back dull slaty blue; rest of the body, 

 with the wing coverts and tertiaries, ruddy brown ; remiges and rectrices 

 dusky black : tertiarks whitened on the inner web, as in the male ; and 

 bill, legs and iris, colored like his. Habitat the northern and central 

 regions : shy, adhering to the forests. 



