150 
PYRRHULA ENUCLEATOR. 
wings are four and a half inches long, reaching beyond 
the middle of the tail ; the smaller coverts are similar 
to the back, cinereous slightly tinged with orange ; 
middle and larger, blackish, margined with whitish 
exteriorly and widely at tip ; the lower coverts are 
whitish gray ; quills, blackish, primaries margined with 
pale greenish orange, secondaries and tertials with 
broad white exterior margins ; the tail is three and 
three quarter inches long, blackish ; the feathers with 
narrow pale edges ; feet, dusky ; nails, blackish. 
In the young female, the head and rump are tinged 
with reddish. The male most accurately described by 
Wilson, is not adult, but full one year old ; at which 
period, contrary to the general law of nature, it is the 
brightest, as was first stated by Linne, though his 
observation has since been overlooked, or unjustly 
contradicted. In the adult male, the parts that were 
crimson in the immature bird, exhibit a fine reddish 
orange, the breast and belly being also of that colour, 
but paler ; the bars of the wings, tinged with rose in 
the young, become pure white. 
We have nothing to add to Wilson’s history of this 
bird. Although, after the example of Temminck and 
others, we place this species at the head of the bull- 
finches, we cannot avoid remarking, that its natural 
affinities connect it most intimately with the crossbills, 
being allied to them closely in its habits, and in its 
form, plumage, and general garb, even in its anoma- 
lous change of colours. The bill, however, precisely 
that of a bullfinch, induces us to leave it in that 
genus, between which and the crossbills it forms a 
beautiful link ; the obtuse point of the lower mandible, 
but especially the small, porrect, setaceous feathers 
covering the nostrils, as in these latter, eminently 
distinguish it from all others of its own genus. These 
characters induced Cuvier to propose it as a subgenus, 
under the name of Cory thus ; and Vieillot as an entirely 
distinct genus, which he first named Pinicola , but has 
since changed it to Strobilophaga . These authors have 
of course been followed by the German and English 
