FEMALE WHITE-WINGED CROSSBILL. 
was imposed on it by the compiler Gmelin, who like the Daw 
in the fable, though with much better success, appropriated to 
himself the borrowed plumes of others, making Latham’s new 
species his own by being the first to give them scientific names, 
which the discoverer himself was afterwards obliged to adopt in 
his Index Ornithologicus. In the present instance however he took 
the liberty of altering Gmelin’s name, most probably with the view 
of giving one analogous to that of Loxia curvirostra , and indicative 
of the remarkable form of the bill. That character having since 
been employed as generic, the propriety of Latham’s change has 
ceased to exist, and in fact the advantage is altogether on the 
side of Gmelin. We have therefore respected the right of 
priority, even in the case of an usurper. 
The Female White-winged Crossbill is five inches and three- 
quarters long, and nearly nine in extent; the bill is more than 
five-eighths long, of a dark horn colour paler on the edges; 
as is the case in the whole genus, it is very much compressed 
throughout, but especially at the point, where the edges almost 
unite into one: both mandibles are curved (the lower one 
upwards) from the base, the ends crossing each other; the 
upper has its ridge distinct, and usually crosses to the left in 
both sexes, and not, as Wilson appears to intimate, generally 
in one sex only; the lower mandible is considerably shorter; 
the tongue is short, cartilaginous, and entire: the irides are of 
a very dark hazel; the small setaceous feathers covering the 
nostrils, which is one of the characteristics of the genus, are 
whitish gray; the bottom of the plumage is every where slate 
colour; the head, and all the upper parts down to the rump, are 
of a grayish green strongly tinged with olive, each feather being 
marked with black in the centre, giving the plumage a streaked 
appearance, as represented in the plate; the rump is pure pale 
lemon yellow, the upper tail-coverts are blackish margined with 
VOL. ii .—y 
