i68 FOREIGN FINCHES IN CAPTIVITY. 



" In its nidification this variety is precisely similar ; in fact it has 

 been lately proved that it is only a Black-headed phase of P. mirabilis, 

 the females of both being very similar to the males of P. gouldia, and 

 can only be distinguished externally by their duller colours. Eggs of 

 the Black-headed phase are white." 



" It may be interesting to know that several of the Gouldian 

 Finches have bred in Dr. Ramsay's aviary. A pair, male and female, 

 of the Black-headed phase hatched out on May i3th last (1888), three 

 young ones, one of which, although having a dull coloured breast, has 

 developed the crimson head of P. mirabilis; there can be no doubt 

 whatever, that P. gouldice, the Black- headed phase and P. armitiana, 

 the Yellow-headed phase, are merely varieties of P. mirabilis originally 

 described by Hombron and Jacquinot in the Voy. au Pole Sud. Many 

 specimens recently brought to Sydney show the various stages of 

 plumage above mentioned, bearing out Dr. Ramsay's statement respecting 

 the various phases of plumage exhibited in this species." 



In a conversation which I had early in 1894, with Mr. Abrahams, 

 respecting the variation of this species, I asked him how he reconciled 

 his view of the distinctness of the varieties of this species with the 

 statement of Mr. Thompson, Mr. Ramsay and Mrs. Fraser. He 

 replied, that to anyone who had studied thousands of individuals it 

 was simple enough : The young of both Red and Black-heads are at 

 first grey, and subsequently black-headed, but in P. mirabilis the black 

 is greyer or more rusty than in P. gouldm and after the moult the 

 red grows gradually in the face of the first, but not in the second. 

 Then again in old -cock P. mirabilis, after a moult, the red will 

 occasionally disappear, showing only as a rusty black ; but after a time 

 the feathers, without another moult, will gradually regain their normal 

 colouring. Mr. Thompson's pair, may have consisted of a young hen, 

 which had not acquired the red face previously, and of an old cock, 

 which temporarily had almost lost it ; but Mr. Abrahams was not 

 prepared to express any decided opinion respecting this case,, without 

 full investigation. 



The production of two types from one pair of Black-heads Mr. 

 Abrahams ascribes to a throw-back, or reversion, due to a cross in the 

 previous generation ; but the yellow form, he assured me, was only a 

 phase of the red type and due to a weak constitution. 



Now all this is extremely plausible, probable, and cannot well be 

 disproved : it resolves itself exactly into what I have already suggested, 

 a parallel case to the different coloured heads in a human family, 

 which, doubtless, are due to the intercrossing of different races. If the 



