802 UR A. B. MEYER ON THE ECLECTI. [NoV. 20, 



coloured like the female — a fact which would be in accordance with 

 numerous others in ornithology. These red patches in the Berlin 

 specimen are chiefly in the middle of the webs, of which the edges are 

 quite green. I will not and cannot decide whether this is the general 

 mode of changing the colour, the specimen in the Dresden Museum, 

 above described, having just the edges of the web still red, whereas 

 the basal part is green. 



Besides, one of the younger male specimens from New Guinea, 

 which I collected myself (C 1306 of the Dresden Museum), has some 

 faint traces of red on the secondaries — a fact which I had overlooked 

 till now : this specimen is older than the Berlin one, as the colora- 

 tion of the bill clearly proves ; but it is still young ; and I therefore 

 doubt the less that the young male is always red like the female. 

 That this has not been already shown by many specimens is a fact 

 which I cannot sufficiently understand ; besides, Dr. Beccari writes 

 that the young ones offer the same differences as the adult birds 

 (Ann. Mus. Gen. vii. 715). 



At all events, whatever be the signification of these remarkable 

 colorations, the specimens spoken of give very strong additional 

 proof to my assertion that the red Eclecti are the females of the 

 green ones^. 



A short time ago Mr. Fiedler, of Agram, in the ' Orn. Central- 

 blatt,' 1877, p. 87, reported that a green Eclectus polychlorus, dis- 

 sected in his town, proved to be a female. I did not succeed in 

 getting fuller particulars of this case, but have a suspicion that it 

 will range among those to which Mr. Forbes, in his paper on Eclectus 

 in 'The Ibis,' 1877, p. 281, alludes; and the Rev. George Brown's 

 cases will perhaps come under the same head. 



The " (S ad." specimen, mentioned by Prof. Cabanis and Dr. 

 Reichenow (/. c.) from New Britain, was brought over alive on 

 the ' Gazelle,' died in Berlin, and was dissected by Prof. Peters ; it 

 proved to be a male, and it is a green individual. 



Dr. Bolau has recently mentioned (Zool. Garten, 1877, p. 295) an 

 Eclectus li?utei from the Solomon Islands, which died in the Zoologi- 

 cal Garden of Hamburg. He kindly informed me that it was a 

 female, and is now in the Museum Godeffroy of that town. Mr. 

 Schmeltz was so obliging as to send me the specimen for inspection 

 (it is No. 14519 of that Museum) ; and I remark that not only are 

 green spots to be seen on the tertiaries, but that also some of their inner 

 webs are nearly entirely green. This specimen shows the red of the 

 head and throat as well as the under tail-coverts tinged with yellowish, 

 very different from the red in the specimens from New Guinea and 

 the islands of Geelvink Bay. I do not know whether this is an 

 individual variation, a consequence perhaps of the state of captivity, 



^ Count SalTadori mentions (Ann. Mus. Civ. Gen. vii. p. 756), on the authority 

 of Siguor d'Albertis, that this is a well-known fact in the Moluccas and New 

 Guinea. If this is the case, it is to be wondered at that neither Wallace, nor 

 Bernstein, nor Rosenberg, who aU spent years in those regions, knew the Malay 

 language well, and procured large series of Jiiales and females, nor any one else 

 reported the well-known fact, or at least took the trouble to prove or disprove 

 its truth. 



