354 Mr. J. H. Gurney's Notes on 



wished : — '' Upon a Helotarsus ecaudatus I could to-day 

 distinctly recognize white shoulder-feathers [H. leuconotus, 

 Pr. Paul of Wiirtemberg) . This, however, as I can with per- 

 fect certainty assert, is nothing but a variety of age. Ulivi, 

 a merchant at Chartum, has for more than a twelvemonth 

 kept such a bird in confinement. It appeared to me to be 

 two years old, and has, in its last moult, from February to 

 April, also obtained white shoulder-feathers, which before 

 were wanting.'^ {Vide 'Naumannia,^ 1852, p. 50.) 



I regret that I can throw no further light upon this ques- 

 tion ; but I may add that, according to my observation, the 

 creamy-backed specimens {H. leuconotus) are more rarely sent 

 to this country than the rufous-backed {H. ecaudatus), and 

 especially so from Southern Africa, where H. leuconotus 

 appears to be scarcer than it is to the north of the equator. 



Both in Helotarsus ecaudatus and also in H. leucotiotus the 

 colouring of the wing is subject to a curious difference in adult 

 specimens, which is not referred to by Mr. Sharpe, but which 

 has engaged the attention of various other ornithologists, 

 -though hitherto without its being satisfactorily accounted for. 

 This difference may be briefly described as follows : — In some 

 adults all the secondary feathers are black, tinged with green 

 on the outer and with brown on the inner webs, and the 

 greater coverts are of an intense black, without an apparent 

 tinge of any other colour ; whilst in other adults the greater 

 coverts are, with the exception of more or less black on some 

 of the feathers, coloured like the lesser and median coverts, 

 i. e. a lustrous stone- or wood- brown, and the secondaries 

 (except those nearest the body, which are either black or 

 brown more or less tinged with black) are of a greyish brown 

 colour with black tips, the grey-brown forming a conspicuous 

 bar across the folded wing. 



The late Jules Verreaux considered this greyish bar to be 

 peculiar to the female bird ; and the following note on the 

 subject is extracted from a letter which he wrote to me in the 

 year 1864 : — " Quant au sujet de V Helotarsus, vous n'ignorez 

 pas, sans doute, la difference immense qui existe dans les ailes 

 entre les sexes ; la femelle a les remiges secondaires presque 

 entierement nuancees de gris, tandis que le male n^en a guere 



