42 
WHITE- WINGED CROSSBILL. 
ash ; base of the bill, covered with recumbent down, of a pale 
brown colour ; eye, hazel. 
The female is rather less than the male ; the bill of a paler 
horn colour ; rump, tail-coverts, and edges of the tail, golden 
yellow ; wings and tail, dull brownish black ; the rest of the 
plumage, olive yellow mixed with ash ; legs and feet, as in 
the male. The young males, during the first season, as is 
nsual with most other birds, very much resemble the female. 
In moulting, the males exchange their red for brownish 
yellow, which gradually brightens into red. Hence, at 
different seasons, they differ greatly in colour. 
WHITE-WINGED CROSSBILL. 
CURVIROSTRA LEUCOPTERA Plate XXXI. Fig. 3. 
Turton , Syst. i. p. 515. 
LOXIA LEUCOPTERA . — Gmelin.* 
Loxia leucoptera, Bonap. Synop. p. 117. 
This is a much rarer species than the preceding; though 
found frequenting the same places, and at the same seasons ; 
* Bonaparte lias fulfilled Wilson’s promise, and figured the female of this 
species, with some valuable remarks regarding its first discovery and habits, 
which will be found in Yol. III. From these it appears to be very like its 
congeners, performing its migrations at uncertain periods and in various 
abundance, enjoying the pine forests, though not farther known by any 
destructive propensities among orchards. It may be looked upon yet as 
exclusively North American. The only record of its being found in another 
country is in extracts from the minute book of the Linnsen Society for 1803. 
“ Mr Templeton, A.L.S. of Orangegrove, near Belfast, in a letter to Mr 
Dawson Turner, F.L. S. mentions, that the White-winged Crossbill, Loxia 
falcirostra of Latham, was shot within two miles of Belfast, in the month of 
January, 1802. It was a female, and perfectly resembled the figure in Dixon’s 
Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America .” Such is the only record we 
have of this bird as a British visitor. When Ireland becomes more settled, 
and her naturalists more devoted to actual observation, we may hear more 
of L. leucoptera, Cypselus melba, Sfc. Bonaparte, in his description of the 
female, has entered fully into the reasons for adopting the specific name of 
leucoptera . — Ed. 
