AND ITS NEAREST ALLIES. 183 



bronze-brown , while others are black at the base and rufous 

 with brown vermieulatious on the terminal half, upon which 

 the bronzy gloss begins to make its appearance. The same 

 change of color without moulting can be observed on the 

 upper tail-coverts, which at first are becoming entirely 

 black and afterwards glossy steel-blue at the tips. Most of 

 the quills have already assumed the black color of the 

 adult stage , while others are brown with black vermieu- 

 latious like in the female , a few others are in a transi- 

 tional stage , having partially assumed the black color of 

 the adult. The innermost pair of tail-feathers are pure 

 white with black shafts , the next pair like the innermost , 

 but narrowly fringed on both webs with black on the 

 basal half; of the third pair only the inner web is white 

 with black edging, while the outer web is black like the 

 rest of the tail-feathers and has a rufous tip. The lower 

 surface is black. The white edgings to the feathers , very 

 broad in the female and youug male, are in our specimen 

 reduced to very narrow fringes or have entirely disappeared 

 and are substituted by the steel-blue gloss of the adult male. 

 Some of the feathers on the flanks are already more or 

 less broadly tipped with steel-blue and show narrow white 

 shaft-stripes which are varied with rufous. The under tail- 

 coverts are uniform dull black without any glossy blue 

 tips, which latter are very conspicuous in the fully adult 

 bird. The spur is but feebly developed. 



Another immature male in a similar but somewhat more 

 advanced stage of plumage, belongs to the collections of 

 the Leyden Museum. It has the white shaft-stripes on the 

 flanks more developed , but still slightly tinged with rufous. 



Adult female. I am unable to find any essential 

 difl'erence between the females of this and the preceding 

 species. Both have the tail-feathers uniform rusty brown 

 with sooty black vermieulatious on the two central pairs, 

 and the hind part of the upper surface is paler than the 

 mantle and strongly vermiculated with sooty brown. 



Our Museum collections contain three red-tailed females 



Notes from the Leyden IMuseuin, Vol. XVII. 



