820 THE MARQUIS OF TWEEDDALE ON [DeC. 4, 



plume to the fully developed plastron, it mi^lit be considered that 

 two species were represented in the series. Three examples, marked 

 cJ , with the crown obscure reddish green, have the face, chin, throat, 

 and supercilium pale faded green, and not blue ; these possess no 

 indications of the red pectoral patch. Three other examples ( d), 

 coloured above almost as brightly as an adult, have the lores, super- 

 cilium, cheeks, and chin blue, as in the female ; but they betray their 

 sex by a few scattered red plumes on the throat and breast. Were 

 it not for these isolated plumes, the sex would be undeterminable by 

 the plumage alone. In one of these three examples the blue chin- 

 and face-feathers are passing over to bright green ; and this example 

 exhibits the greatest number of scattered red pectoral and gular 

 plumes. In six other examples ( 6 ), with the pectoral plastron 

 fully developed or almost so, there is no blue about the chin and 

 face. 



If the six examples described above (marked by Mr. Everett as 

 being of females) are in perfect plumage (and their upper plumage 

 is not to be distinguished from that of undoubtedly adult males), the 

 sexes in this species, when adult, have each a peculiar plumage. It 

 was from either an adult female or else a young male with a blue 

 face and chin, and before any red pectoral plumes had appeared, 

 that Dr. O. Finsch described L. hartlaubi. Souancd's description 

 of his L. bonapartei (R. et M. Zool. 1856, p. 222), a bird said to be a 

 native of the Sooloo Islands, agrees in all respects with L. hartlaubi 

 <S adult, the colour of the bill excepted, which is stated to be 

 black. The adult male of L. indicus is difficult to distinguish from 

 L. hartlaubi $ vel ^ juv. But in the Ceylon bird the cherry-red 

 of the head does not descend so low on the occiput, and the nape ia 

 not so intensely orange. The lower surface of L. indicus is pure 

 light green and not yellow-green ; the upper tail-coverts do not cover 

 so much of the rectrices. The blue on the inner webs of the quills 

 and on the under surface of the rectrices is much lighter in shade. 

 L. indicus is also somewhat larger, and has a shorter and more 

 powerful bill. Souanc^'s description of L. indicus, var. A, S {I- c), 

 partly taken from examples in the Massena collection, said to be 

 from the Philippines, may have been from Mindanao individuals of L. 

 hartlaubi $ vel cJ juv. But there is more reason now to infer that 

 Souance's species, 1 74 b (L. apicalis), said positively to be from Min- 

 danao, was described from examples of either females or young males of 

 L. hartlaubi. Souance's remarks were comparative as between Ceylon 

 and so-called Mindanao specimens, in which case the principal differ- 

 entiating character of L. apicalis, and that which the title is meant 

 to express, "I'extremite des rectrices est coloree de bleu indigo," will 

 hold good ; for while in L. indicus the apices of the rectrices in most 

 examples are light yellow-green, in several of Mr. Everett's specimens 

 of L. hartlaubi they are dark blue, that darker shade of blue of the 

 under surface of the rectrices which it has in common with L. philip- 

 pensis, L. chrysonotus, and L. regulus. Souance, moreover, was not 

 sure that the apices of the rectrices in L. indicus contrasted with the 

 general colour. By this view of the question Dr. Finsch's difficulty 



