STURNIB^^. 157 



sombre females, from which they differ so marvellously 

 in appearance. 



The following is the description of an adult male and 

 a female : — 



Male. — Head, neck, back, and scapulars, upper tail- 

 coverts, and the exposed parts of the wings in general, 

 also the chin, throat, and breast of the most beautiful 

 deep blue and violet, with dazzling purple, puce, and 

 bronze shades when exposed to a full light ; primaries 

 dark brown; secondaries and tertials darker brown, 

 broadly margined and glossed with the same colours as 

 the upper part of the plumage ; on the tertials there is 

 also a greenish reflection, which is even more conspicu- 

 ous in the two middle tail-feathers ; the rest of the tail- 

 feathers are brown, with violet and purple reflections, 

 strongest on the outer vanes, except the lateral rectrices, 

 in which the lower portion of the outer web is white ; the 

 belly, flanks, vent, and under tail-coverts are white, the 

 thighs white mottled with fawn. 



Female. — The whole of the upper part of the plumage 

 brown, but with a spotted appearance on the head and 

 sides of the neck, caused by the brown feathers being 

 edged on two sides with reddish fawn, which also sur- 

 rounds nearly the whole of the feathers on the back, but 

 is there much paler. The inner vanes of the primaries are 

 cinnamon-coloured, which becomes paler on those of the 

 secondaries and quite obscure on those of the tertials ; 

 the secondary and tertial wing-coverts are broadly mar- 

 gined and edged with fawn. The whole of the under- 

 parts are white, faintly dashed with fawn on the chin 



