Review of Dr. Flnsch's 'Die Papageien.' 289 



ences bearing on his subject. Kelaart^ who, besides Layard, 

 was the only ornithological author who may have seen P. cal- 

 thropcB in " the flesli/^ merely includes its bare title in his list 

 (Prodr. Faun. Zeylan. pp. xxx, 127). This embraces the 

 sum total of the published facts regarding P. calthropa up to 

 1868. And it was not until 1872 that it was made known 

 that the female differed by having a black bill^ (Holdsworth, 

 P. Z. S. 1872, p. 426, no. 65). Mr. Hume knows this species 

 by its skin only. Let me transcribe his remarks : — " When 

 we turn to calthropm, Layard, it is the same story ; on no 

 evidence, but his own personal conviction, on the contrary in 

 the face of all existing evidence, Dr. Finsch calmly says : 

 * Questions in regard to differences in the adult plumage, 

 and to whether the male and female are always differently 

 coloured, still lack in this species an altogether more rigorous 

 investigation. The numerous phases of plumage which I have 

 seen, permit me to assert with tolerable certainty an entire 

 similarity in both sexes. Noteworthy and wonderful how- 

 ever, always remains the black colour of the bill in the younger 

 birds/ But as a matter of fact, no further investigation is 

 required, because a dozen different observers have cleared up 

 the main point at issue viz., the colour of the adult female^s 

 bill, but our author absolutely ignores all this because it is 

 irreconcileable with his theory ! Unlike the other species 

 with which I have previously dealt, I have never myself shot 

 or dissected examples of calthropa, but I have more faith 

 in human testimony than our author apparently has, and 

 having a large series of specimens carefully sexed by three 

 different European observers, I can state the following with 

 ' tolerable certainty ' independently of what far better natu- 

 ralists than myself have already recorded to a similar effect " 

 (/. c. pp. 18, 19). I have given all the pubhshed facts within 

 the possibility of Dr. Finsch's knowledge in 1868, and Mr. 



* Mr. Holdsworth, as he obligingly has told me in epist, did not arrive 

 at this conclusion through having dissected a single specimen, but was 

 guided by the experience of Mr. Bligh, who had killed many examples. 

 It is just possible that Dr. Templeton may have published remarks on this 

 species, but I have never seen any. 



