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done by examining the form of the skull, the length and width

of the bill, and the comparative length of the longer primaries :

thus in my paper “ On Sexual Distinctions, etc.,” (Vol. III. pp.

104-6) I pointed out how various finches in which the plumage

showed no marked difference could readily be sexed when taken

in the hand and compared side by side, either by looking down

at the two heads from above, or in profile.


Later, in one or two papers published in the ‘ Zoologist,’

I called attention to the sexual differences in the wings of

certain birds, the males of which showed comparatively longer

primaries than the females. To these I added a short additional

paper in Vol. VI. of our Magazine comparing the wings of

various common finches, tending to show that this distinction

was one worthy of study.


From what the late Mr. Abrahams told me, it seems

probable that, in many cases, the males of Parrots may be dis¬

tinguished from the females by the darker colouring of their

irides ; but he also put me in the way of discovering another

character, which (if constant, as that keen naturalist assured me

it was) should prove of even greater value, both to the avi-

culturist, and to the cabinet-ornithologist :—


Observing that Mr. Abrahams only had to take a parrot in

his hand in order to state unhesitatingly to what sex it belonged,

I asked him to tell me how he managed it. He replied that it

was a secret which it had taken him five years to discover, which

therefore he did not care to share with other dealers (over whom

it naturally gave him an advantage), but he was willing to

enable me to discover it if I would promise not to make it

generally known during his lifetime. In order to discover this

sexual difference Mr. Abrahams diligently collected hundreds of

dead parrots, carefully sexed them by dissection, prepared and

labelled the skulls with name and sex ; and, having eventuall} r

got together a considerable number of skulls, he set to work to

compare the males with the females. He told me that, having,

after a careful study of his material, hit upon a well-defined

difference, he had destroyed most of the skulls, as having

answered their purpose, but he still retained a large box full.


Taking down a box from a shelf, my old friend placed side

by side on a table the paired skulls of some five or six parrots

belonging to widely different groups, and asked me to see if I

could discover the character. Of course, as I had been accus¬

tomed to look for the differences in Finches, Thrushes, Crows,

etc., in the crown and the upper mandible, I looked for similar



