------------------------------------------------------------------------ ORNITHOLOGY. PLATE X. FRINGILLA BENGALUS BLUE BELLIED FINCH. ORDER PASSERES. GENERIC CHARACTER. Bill conic, straight and pointed. SPECIFIC CHARACTER AND SYNONYMS. Pale blue; head and back grey: sides of the head purple. FRINGILLA BENGALUS: dilute cærulea, capite dorsoque griseis, lateribus capitis purpureis. _Gmel. Linn. Syst. Nat. 1. p. 920._ FRINGILLA BENGHALUS: _Linn. Syst. Nat. 1. p. 323. 32._ (mas.) FRINGILLA ANGOLENSIS: _Linn. Syst. Nat. 1. p. 323. 31._ (fem.) FRINGILLA BENGHALUS: dilute cærulea, capite dorsoque griseis, lateribus capitis purpureis. _Lath. Ind. Orn. 2. p. 461. 91._—_Lath. Syn. 111. p. 310. 81._ Le Bengali. _Briss. Orn. 111. p. 303. 60. pl. 10. f. 1._—_Buff. Ois. iv. p. 92._—_Pl. Enl. 115. f. 1._ Blue Bellied Finch. _Edw. pl. 131._ (female) * * * * * A pretty species of the Fringilla tribe, about the size of our smaller Linnets. The bill and legs of this bird are of a pale flesh colour: the body above, together with the wings, of a greyish brown: the lower part of the back, rump, and whole of the underside, of a delicate azure blue; the tail blue, of a somewhat deeper tint, and rather cuneated or wedge-formed. This is the general appearance of the plumage in both sexes, excepting, only, that the colours are usually somewhat brighter in the male than the female bird; and that the male bird is distinguished further by having a dark red spot on each side of the head, beneath the eyes, a character altogether wanting in the female. It should be observed that these birds vary occasionally in the colours of their plumage, particularly in the cærulean tints of the under surface, which sometimes inclines to a pale rufous grey, or to blue intermixed with rufous grey; and in some instances when the state of plumage is less mature, the latter colour predominates so entirely on the lower surface, that only a transition tint of the azure appears upon the breast and abdomen. Linnæus was induced to imagine that the two sexes of this bird were distinct species, the male he denominated _Fringilla Bengalus_, the female _Fringilla Angolensis_; the male bird, which he happened to describe, having been received from Bengal, the female from Angola. The truth is, that this widely diffused species inhabits both these places in common, with many others in Asia and Africa: in Angola, in particular, they appear to be very common. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: _11_