158 CRIMSON NUT-CRACKER. 
breast, upper tail-covers, and half way down the 
flanks, are of a bright crimson, and appear glossy, 
as if polished, but without any coloured reflections. 
The tail is of a dull red, but the inner half of the 
lateral feathers are black ; the quills are nearly so. 
All the rest of the plumage is a deep uniform sepia 
brown. Bill, deep black ; legs, brown ; claws, long, 
slender, and but little curved. 
Total length, 5§ inches ; bill from the gape, T 6 g ; 
wings, 2/g ; tail beyond, 1|- ; from the base, 2^ ; 
tarsus, f . 
If, as naturalists conceive, the typical character 
of the finches is in the strength and conic form of 
the bill, then the bird before us, possessing both in 
the most eminent degree of perfection (fig. 1), must 
stand at the head of the entire family. And this is 
the view we have taken of its station, resulting from 
the analysis of that division of the finches to which 
it unquestionably belongs. Of all the forms in other 
countries we yet know of, it comes nearest to the 
South American hard-bills, forming the sub-genus 
Coccoborus ; while, on the other hand, there can be 
no question, we think, of its close relationship to the 
sub-genus Hertroid.es : from this we pass to Sper- 
inophago, from which nature seems to return again 
to her first or most pre-eminent type, by means of thy 
haw-finches of temperate climates ( Coccothraustes y 
and the hard-bills of South America, Coccoborus. 
It is among these latter birds, indeed, that we have 
the nearest approach to that now before us. The 
