THE BIRDS OF THE ANDAMAN AND NICOBAE ISLANDS. 399 



tliis cream-colour becoming pure white on the upper back ; middle back and 

 scapulars smoke-grey or brownish-grey. (In four males out of nine the 

 scapulars are distinctly tinged with chesnut, and have chesnut shaft stripes.) 

 Rump and upper tail coverts bright chesnut. Wings black, strongly glossed 

 with rifle green ; tail black with a green gloss, the central pair of feathers very 

 narrowly tipped with chesnut, the tips becoming succesaively broader on 

 each pair of feathers until, in the outer pair, nearly the whole of the outer 

 and about an inch of the inner web is chesnut. Lower abdomen from a 

 little above the vent and lower tail coverts deep chesnut, with which the 

 flanks also are more or less suffused. Wing-lining white, generally mingled 

 with a few black and chesnut feathers. 



Four adult females out of five differ distinctly from the males in having the 

 chesnut of the vent shading up into the white of the abdomen, so as to tinge 

 the whole of it with creamy-chesnut or fawn-colour ( in one right 

 up to the shoulders;. None of the females have any chesnut on the 

 scapulars. 



Soft parts. — Bill, lemon-yellow, with upper mandible behind nostril and 

 base of lower mandible smalt-blue ifeet, dirty lemon-yellow. Iris, opalescent 

 white to pale Cambridge-blue ; nis»(/e of mouth smalt-blue; in apparently a 

 very old bird, blackish-blue. 



Young birds (eight males and five females).— Mr. Gates, says (■'Birds," J, 

 p. 525) : " In Sturnia the young are brown till the first autumn." I can hardly 

 believe that this is correct with regard to these two species. In the Anda- 

 mans and Nicobars, from May to March, I saw certainly two or three 

 thousand of S. erythropygia and tens of thousands of S. andamanensis, and in no 

 case did I ever see a bird with any traces of brown, although I killed one 

 iS. andamanensis with the gape still soft [and yellow and the old birds 

 feeding it. 



The young of Sturnia erythropygia differ only from adults in having the 

 feathers of the crown with narrow brownish-grey shaft-stripes (very faint 

 in some) ; the upper wing coverts, secondaries, and tertiaries narrowly edged 

 with fulvous, except the innermost tertiary feather which is broadly edged 

 with grey ; and the abdomen more tinged with creamy-fawn than in adults. 

 Sexes alike, except that the oldest immature female (which has dropped all 

 rufous edgings to the feathers and only differs from an adult in retaining 

 the pink at the base of the bill) has the abdomen more strongly tinged with 

 chesnut than any male. 



I am of opinion that the young leave the nest in the plumage above 

 described, and are never brown. 



The immature bird has the iris pale grey ; bill yellow, inclined to dull 

 greenish above ; base of the lower mandible (blue in adults) fleshy-pink or 

 rosy-pink; legs and feet yellow, claws dusky yellow. Inside of mouth fleshy 



