350 BIRDS FROM YEZO, JAPAN—STEJNEGER. 
according to his opinion, the somewhat smaller size and the greater 
intensity of the rusty suffusion on the white portions of the plumage of 
the female.* Oates (B. of India, 1, 1889, p. 525) also states that “in Stur- | 
nia the sexes are alike.” From an inspection of the material before me 
I am led to believe, however, that these gentlemen are mistaken, 
especially Dr. Blasius (for, though it is highly probable that stwrnina and 
violacea show no difference in this respect, it is somewhat risky to draw 
conclusions by analogies in such cases as this), and that Sharpe is 
correct when describing the two sexes as different (Cat. B. Orn. Mus., 
X11, 1890, pp. 70-71). 
All the specimens which, in the table below, have the sex mark indi- 
cated and not included in parenthesis are thus sexed by the collectors; 
and all the glossy ones are marked as males, while those which are 
marked 2 are all dull brownish... This may be a coincidence, though 
not very likely, in view of some of the facts to be brought out below; it 
may also be that some of the collectors have not determined the sex by 
actual dissection, but then the material tends to show, at least, that 
the collectors (in this case ornithologists of considerable experience), 
who were familiar with the birds in their native haunts, regard the 
glossy individuals as males and the plain ones as females. Three of the 
brown birds marked as females were collected in May, one as late as the 
29th. These differ in several essential points from the young autumnal 
bird in a somewhat similar plumage. Their bill is quite black, while in 
the young ones it is horny brown above and quite pale at base of 
lower mandible. The black bill I take to be an unfailing sign of ma- 
turity, and these birds I therefore regard as adult females. Their legs 
are also darker colored, and in regard to plumage these females differ 
from the young birds in having the fore neck and breast uniformly 
grayish white and not streaked with brownish, as in the latter. Some- 
body might remark that even this is not convincing, and that there is 
a possibility that the full adult plumage may not be assumed until the 
molt in the second autumn. But such a supposition is directly dis- 
proved by Henson’s No. 52. This bird is unquestionably a young bird 
of the year, which has just commenced its first autumnal molt. The 
new feathers are just appearing on the lower back, and as they are of a 
brilliant glossy purple black they prove beyond a shadow of doubt that 
the young birds molt into the fully adult plumage already in the first au- 
tumn, It is therefore hardly possible that the brownish winter birds 
from Celebes which Dr. Blasius examined could be young birds of the ~ 
*In justice to Dr. Blasius it should be remarked, however, that he has expressed 
himself somewhat guardedly. Te says (tom. cit., p. 121): ‘ Beide Biilge zeigen in der 
Fiirbung und Grosse in die Augen fallende Verschiedenheiten, die wahrscheinlich als 
Geschlechtsunterschied aufzufassen sein werden, da von einer Verschiedenheit nach 
der Jahreszeit hier fiiglich nicht die Rede sein kann” [as both specimens were killed 
on December 13]. I regard it as well established, however, that the variation in the 
rusty tinge is partly individual and partly seasonal, and that it has nothing to de 
with the sex of the bird. 
