274 BULLETIN 186, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



The various Thai species of this group have very similar habits. 

 When not breeding they are found in loose bands of 20 or more 

 individuals, which move restlessly through the jungle, from the top 

 of one high tree to the next, all the while keeping up an endless con- 

 versation of melodious chatter and snatches of song. 



The molts and plumages of the minivets seem to be poorly under- 

 stood and some quite recent authors have erroneously stated that 

 color change occurs in these birds without molt. In northern Thai- 

 land, breeding takes place in April and May (Doi Angka, April 18). 

 Birds of the year wear a barred juvenal plumage during the following 

 summer. This is lost by a partial post juvenal molt (August 29- 

 November 21) ; some males pass directly into the orange first-nuptial 

 dress but the majority assume a first- winter plumage resembling the 

 habit of the adult female but distinguishable by the orange suffusion 

 on front, throat, and breast, and the orange tinge in the retained 

 juvenal remiges and rectrices (first-winter females are recognizable 

 from adults only by the juvenal remiges and rectrices). In spring 

 (February 18-April 19) there is a partial prenuptial molt: The 

 yellow body feathers of the male are replaced by orange ; the female 

 is scarcely to be known from old birds of the same sex. During the 

 following summer and autumn there is a complete postnuptial molt 

 by which the male assumes the scarlet and black plumage of the old 

 adult. I have taken old adults in postnuptial molt from June 13 to 

 November 22. 



My specimens had the irides brown; the bill feet, toes, and claws 

 black. 



The adult male has the entire head, throat, neck, scapulars, and 

 upper half of the back glossy blue-black; the lower back, rump, and 

 upper tail coverts bright scarlet; the rectrices bright scarlet, the 

 central pair with the entire inner web and the base of the outer web 

 black (rarely with both webs all scarlet or all black) ; the wing quills 

 with the basal half bright scarlet, the apical half black, the inner 

 secondaries also with a conspicuous, elongate scarlet spot along the 

 outer web near the tip; the thighs dark gray; the remaining under- 

 pays bright scarlet. The adult female has the lores gray; the fore- 

 head, f orecrown, and sides of the head deep yellow, changing to olive- 

 washed gray on the posterior crown, scapulars, and upper half of 

 the back; the lower back, rump, and upper tail coverts deep yellow 

 or olivaceous-yellow; the central pair of rectrices wholly black, the 

 others deep yellow with an outwardly decreasing amount of black; 

 the wings as in the male but with deep yellow in place of scarlet ; the 

 thighs dark gray; the remaining underparts bright yellow. 



