374 BULLETIN" 153, UNJTED STATES iSrATIOlSTAL MUSEUM 



sjimilar to lorti but to differ in having the whole breast blue instead 

 of green and with lilac shaft stripes on the feathers. Madarasz had a 

 series of 20 specimens, all of which agreed with the type. The fact 

 that kovdcsi is based on a considerable series rather than on a single 

 specimen prevents it from being casually considered as an aberrant 

 lorti. However, the four adult males from Ourso collected by 

 Ouellard^^ are lorti and not kovdcsi. Furthermore, of the entire 

 series of 38 birds, only 1, a male from the Gato River (U.S.N.M. 

 243721), agrees with the description of that form. Also, it should 

 be remembered that rollers vary greatly in shade of color, some being 

 greener, others bluer. To take the two extremes, we have a bird 

 (U.S.N.M. 243719) from Black Lake Abaya, in which the breast is 

 asphodel green slightly washed with light blue, and another 

 (U.S.N.M. 217998) from near Gardula, in which the breast is prac- 

 tically the same color as the abdomen, which, in both birds, is blue. 

 The single specimen agreeing with the characters of kovdcsi has the 

 top of the head and the hind nape darker blue, less greenish than 

 most of the others in the series, but is matched by some, which, on 

 the underparts, are certainly like lorti. It should be mentioned that 

 the blue colors look blue only when the bird is held between the light 

 and the eye, and become greenish if the eye is placed between the 

 light and the bird. 



If G. kovdcsi should prove to be distinct, the specimen referred to 

 would have to be considered as of that species, which would extend 

 its range from Ourso to the Gato River near Gardula. 



The two immature birds differ from the adults in the following 

 respects: The back is darker, duller, more earth brown, less rufous 

 brown ; the top of the head and nape like the back but more grayish 

 and washed with greenish; throat and cheeks dull, pale purplish 

 T-ufous brown instead of purplish violet, becoming more rufescent 

 laterally, breast dusky earth brown washed with bluish green ; abdo- 

 men as in adults but paler; tail as in adults but the outermost rectri- 

 ces not elongated; wings as in adults, but the outer webs of the two 

 outermost primaries deep ultramarine blue, not deep violet. This 

 plumage is followed by an immature plumage in which the adult 

 coloration is attained but the juvenal wings are retained. Imma- 

 ture (second year) birds may be told from adults by the lighter 

 outer webs of the outermost primaries and by the fact that usually 



(but not always) the throat is more rufescent in immature birds, 

 more deeply purplish in adults. 



There can be no doubt as to the juvenal nature of the first plumage 



described, as the two birds have all the remiges growing in simul- 



"See p. 373. 



