26 Dr. A. B. Meyer on the Coloration 



of some of the many able collectors who have been long 

 resident in New Zealand. 



Sir Walter has explained {op. cit. p. 193) that there is 

 " considerable variation in size " in Spiloglaux novce-zealan- 

 di<e, and mentions one he received from Mr. W. T. L. 

 Travers as "unusually small in all its proportions"; he also 

 describes the specimen in the Leiden Museum as " equalling 

 in size small examples of Spiloglaux novce-zealandice" ; indeed, 

 the subject is so exhaustively treated in his great work, that 

 no more need be added here. No New-Zealand colonist has 

 ever had such facilities for collecting and studying the habits 

 of our remarkable birds, and for examining collections in all 

 parts of the world, as this distinguished ornithologist. 



The fact of the specimen of the so-called Scops nov<e- 

 zealandice in the Leiden Museum being labelled " Nouvelle 

 Zelande " without more definite authority, is, I think, sufficient 

 to justify Sir Walter Buller in excluding the species from 

 his work on the birds of New Zealand. 



III. — On the Coloration of the Young in the Psittacine Genus 

 Eclectus. By Dr. A. B. Meyer. 

 (Plate I.) 

 The colour of the young of those species of the genus 

 Eclectus in which the males are green and the females 

 red has often been discussed, and every possible opinion 

 has been maintained by various writers. I myself have 

 had at different times very different and erroneous notions 

 on this question, which, however, I believe I have settled 

 definitely in my paper " Ueber die Farbung der Nestjungen 

 von Eclectus, Wagl." ( f Zeitschrift f iir wissenschaftliche Zo- 

 ologie/ vol. xxxvii. pp. 146-162). In this I proved that the 

 young males are green and the young females red from the 

 nest, as had been asserted by some authors before. In spite 

 of this, Dr. Gadow (Bronn's ' Klassen und Ordnungen des 

 Thierreichs/ vol. vi. pt. iv. Aves, p. 585) has even recently 

 (1889) stated that the young ones are " reddish, but not yet 

 green/' This is, no doubt, a mistake. 



Two young females of E. roratus were figured by me in 



