DIE PAPACEIEN. 11 



Raipoor, Sumbulpore, and the Tributary Mahals, from the Terai, 

 and the low valleys at the base of the Kumaon hills, from the 

 Dhoon and the valley below Miissori, and from the north-west 

 Punjab, I have large series, and all these birds are identical. 

 From Sikhim I have only a pair, and these present the differences 

 already noticed; but this pair agrees exactly with Mr. 

 Hodgson's original drawings of his nipalensis, and it seems 

 therefore probable that the slight differences alluded to are con- 

 stant. From Burmah my only birds are from Thyetmyo, but 

 these agree very nearly (I hesitate to say entirely) with the 

 Andaman and Cocos birds, of which we have a fair series of 

 eight males and eight females. The Ceylon birds stand by them- 

 selves distinguishable, it appears to me, at a glance from all 

 those from the localities above indicated. 



Of course good specimens of full plumaged adults must be 

 compared, no one probably could separate with certainty, dirty 

 ill-plumaged immature specimens of sivalensis and magnirostris ; 

 but the Ceylon birds, I think, could always or nearly always be 

 separated at once by their inferior size. 



Dr. Finsch did not discriminate these three species and per- 

 haps may not admit them now, but this signifies little, for in 

 regard to the points at issue, all three are alike, and Dr. Finsch 

 is equally mistaken in regard to all of them. He says : 



" According to Blyth and Jerdon, the specimens without neck- 

 rings are females. What the young birds are like, is unfor- 

 tunately nowhere said, and consequently there still remain great 

 gaps which might easily have been filled by Indian ornitholo- 

 gists. As I can prove satisfactorily that in the allied species, 

 torquatus, cyanoceplialus , &c, there is a perfect conformity in the 

 colour of both sexes, it appears to me very probable that the 

 same is the case in eupatrius, and that the pretended females, 

 without the neck-ring, are not yet fully plumaged birds. Unfor- 

 tunately, I could find in none of the specimens which I examined, 

 any signs of transition, so that it was not possible to make 

 certain of this." 



Please note the modesty and courtesy of this passage ! Dr. 

 Jerdon and Blyth (who have examined the fresh birds) state so 

 and so, but Dr. Finsch thinks it very probable that it is quite 

 the contrary. Like the Psalmist of old, Dr. Finsch seems to 

 have " said in his heart that all men are liars." 



Some of us however venture to hope that he and his authority 

 are mistaken. For my part I have dissected, at the very least, fifty 

 specimens of P. sivalensis, and Davison and I have recently 

 sexed eighteen of magnirostris. Mr. Oates and Capt. Fielden 



