DIE PAPAGEIEN. 19 



The numerous phases of plumage which I have seen, permit me 

 to assert with tolerable certainty an entire similarity in both sexed. 



" Noteworthy and wonderful however, always remains the 

 black color of the bill in the younger birds." 



But as a matter of fact, no further investigation is required, 

 because a dozen different observers have cleared up the main 

 point at issue viz., the colour of the adult female's bill, but our 

 author absolutely ignores all this because it is irreconcileable 

 with his theory ! 



Unlike the other species with which I have previously dealt, 

 I have never myself shot or dissected examples of Calthropa, 

 but I have more faith in human testimony than our author 

 apparently has, and having a large series of specimens carefully 

 sexed by three different European observers, I can state the 

 following with '■ tolerable certainty " independently of what far 

 better naturalists than myself have already recorded to a similar 

 effect. 



The adults of both sexes are nearly alike, but in the male the 

 upper mandible is bright red, pale yellowish horny towards the tip 

 where it is abraded. The lower mandible is a pale brown or red- 

 dish brown, yellowish horn}'' towards the margins where abraded. 

 In the adult female, the upper mandible is invariably black, or 

 nearly so, the lower mandible similar to that of the male, but 

 duskier and darker. In the female also the narrow frontal band, 

 lores, and orbital region are a duller and paler green than in the 

 male. The young of both sexes entirely want the black mandi- 

 bular stripe, and all the grey or blue grey which charac- 

 terizes the heads of the adults in both sexes ; the whole head is 

 green, the cap defined by an indistinct brighter green collar. The 

 upper mandible in both sexes in the young is red, at any rate if 

 Mr. Vincent Legge and others have correctly sexed the specimens 

 of young they sent me, as I entertain no doubt that they have. 



Of (10), Luciani, I know nothing, but in opposition to Dr. 

 Finsch who, by his diagnosis, leaves it to be presumed that the 

 adults of both sexes are precisely similar, I venture to predict that 

 whenever the habitat of this species is discovered, and a sufficiency 

 of properly sexed specimens are obtained, the adult females 

 will prove to have black upper mandibles, while those of the males 

 are red. 



In regard to (11), Alexandria Javanicus, Osb, (but not as I think 

 fasciatus Mull, which is probably rather our Indian bird), Dr. 

 Finsch tells us that adults and young, alike, all have both mandi- 

 bles red, and that further, the adult males and females are in 

 every respect perfectly similar in plumage. This is wholly con- 

 trary to my experience in the ten species of this genus, of all of 



