22 DE PAPAGEIEN. 



similar, to the male, also from the Himalayas !! in Heine's 

 Museum. 



What Himalayan female columhoides may be like, no mere In- 

 dian ornithologist could presume to say. We leave that to Dr. 

 Finsch ; but of the species which we, perhaps, erroneously con- 

 ceive to be colttmboides, whereof no straggler even approaches 

 within 1000 miles of the Himalaj'as, it is as well that he should 

 know that the adult female always differs from the male in en- 

 tirely wanting the bright green collar, which in the latter suc- 

 ceeds the black neck-ring, in wanting the green lores and green 

 about the orbital region, and in having the upper mandible, 

 black, or nearly so, instead of bright red as in the males. The 

 point of the bill in both sexes, where abraded, is paler, a sort of 

 a horny white ; the lower mandible in both sexes is similar, a 

 sort of dingy reddish or orange brown, pale yellowish horny 

 where abraded. The quite young bird, I may add, has the grey 

 of the adults replaced by green, more or less tinged with blue 

 upon the head, entirely wants both green and black collars, 

 though the latter soon begins to shew on the throat and sides of 

 the neck (not extending to the back of the neck till a good deal 

 later) and apparently at one stage in both sexes has the upper 

 mandible a somewhat brownish red, and the lower mandible a 

 paler somewhat orange brown, both mandibles being paler (a 

 sort of dingy horny white) at the tips. 



Dr. Finsch tells us in his usual strain " according to Jerdon " 

 (who must have shot scores, as it is very abundant on the ghats 

 which he so exhaustively worked) " the female at every age ex- 

 hibits a black bill, but in regard to this I " (who appears to have 

 seen four skins, one wrongly sexed, and two of them ticketed 

 from localities where the species never by any chance occurs) 

 " must raise well-founded doubts, since, notably, the specimen 

 in the Bremen Museum shows so clearly the change from the 

 black to the red colouring." 



Is Dr. Finsch quite sure that it is not just the other way, a 

 change from red to black ? There is, I admit, one point yet 

 doubtful, and that is, does the male at any stage exhibit a 

 black upper mandible. That the adult male has a red one, and 

 the adult female a black on,e is certain ; that the quite young of 

 both sexes have reddish ones, 1 hold to -be certain, but as this 

 statement is based upon the examination of only four nestlings 

 two males and two females ; any one who likes may reasonably still 

 doubt it ; that in the female the reddish bill of the nestling, 

 changes later to black, I consider (but from observations on only 

 two females) "also certain ; but whether this same is the case 

 with the young male, I cannot say. Dr. Finsch tells us that 



