18 
FEMALE PINE BULLFINCH. 
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 Bullfinches, 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, general garb, and even in its anomalous 
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 Corythus, 
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 orni¬ 
thologists of the new school, who appear to consider themselves 
bound to acknowledge every genus proposed, from whatever 
quarter, or however minute and variable the characters on which 
it is based. 
h. 
