1? DIE PAPAG.EIEN. 



flesh, is intuitively better acquainted with the state of the case 

 than skilled practical naturalists who have dissected scores. 



Let me tell Dr. Finsch, that I personally must have sexed 

 some thirty specimens of this species, and that the following is 

 my experience : 



The female always wants the deep maroon red wing-spot. In 

 both sexes in the adult, the basal half, two-thirds, or three-fourths 

 of the upper mandible are bright red, the rest of the upper man- 

 dible and lower mandible yellow, varying from bright yellow to 

 pale yellowish horny. In the young bird, in both sexes, the black 

 mandibular stripe and collar, (defining the slaty dusky head, in 

 the adult) are entirely wanting, and the whole top and back of 

 the head is green (the cheeks a somewhat brownish green) only 

 on the back of the neck a faint paler green band defines the 

 cap. Both mandibles are a pale yellowish hornj^ brownish to- 

 wards the base of the upper mandible. 



I cannot however flatter myself that this statement will affect 

 Dr. Fiii sell's views ; there are some who f will not believe, even 

 if one went to them from the dead/ and I question whether if 

 I sent him a bird of this species that could talk (and they 

 speak verv well at times) Dr. Finsch would believe it, even 

 though it said itself " I'm an old* female," if it wanted the wing- 

 spot ? 



As I said before, I have not taken in hand to catalogue Dr. 

 Finsch's errors, I confine myself for the most part to those in 

 which with the truth set before him clearly by men like Blyth, 

 Hodgson, and Jerdon, he has perversely erred, through an excess 

 of self-reliance, but really when I find it stated that P. schlsu- 

 ceps " is found throughout the greatest portion of the Indian 

 Continent," I am compelled to point out that this species occurs 

 in barely one-fiftieth part of that vast . tract. Except in the 

 extreme East, it is almost rigidly confined to a narrow zone on the 

 North, lying between the bases of the sub-Himalayan ranges and 

 the first high snowy ridge. In the extreme East, it occurs on 

 the higher ranges running down from Assam to Burmah and is 

 found on the Arracan Hills, as low down at any rate as the 19° 

 North Latitude. 



When we turn to CaUhrop*., Layard, it is the same story ; on 

 no evidence, but his own personal conviction, on the contrary in 

 the face of all existing evidence, Dr. Finsch calmly says : 

 " Questions in regard to differences in the adult plumage, and to 

 whether the male and female are always differently colored, still 

 lack in this species an altogether more rigorous investigation. 



* But query, would nay female admit ttiat she was old ? P. D. 



