DIE PAPAGEIEN. 25 



entirely similar to the male, even as regards the coloring of the 

 bill/' he tells us " Blyth's description of the female, as distin- 

 guishable by the more or less black upper mandible and the want 

 of the greyish green tint on the hind neck and mantle, relates 

 therefore to the young bird." 



Unfortunately, for Dr. Finsch, it does nothing of the kind. 

 Apud Finsch, Blyth is always wrong and Finsch is always right, 

 but the real facts as Madame Delacroix used to remark " are so 

 much to the contrary, that they are quite to the reverse." And 

 in every single instance in which in regard to species of this 

 genus, Dr. Finsch has questioned, disputed, or denied the correct- 

 ness of Jerdon, Blyth, and other Indian ornithologists' state- 

 ments, it is lie and not they who have erred. 



This, let it be clearly remembered, is not a matter of opinion, 

 we who have carefully sexed with our own hands, not single 

 specimens, but scores of most of these birds must know ; in one, 

 two, or even possibly three cases, a man might be mistaken, but 

 not where he deals with dozens, and a fortiori not where his re- 

 sults are confirmed by those of several others working indepen- 

 dently, and we positively affirm, that in both the Nicobar and 

 Andaman races (or species) even the oldest females are distin- 

 guished by the more or less black upper mandible and the want 

 of the glaucous, or greyish lilac tint on the hind neck and 

 mantle, and moreover by the red cheek patch being smaller and 

 duller in colour, and lastly, by the mandibular stripe being entirely 

 green, as in the Andaman bird, or at least having its terminal 

 one- fourth greenish as in the Nicobar bird. 



Thank goodness, we have now only caniceps left to speak of; 

 one grows weary of exposing these perpetual and perverse blunders. 

 As usual, we are told, " the old females are colored like the 

 males, and have like these, red upper mandibles." As usual we 

 find, " according to Blyth and Dr. Cantor, the black-billed speci- 

 mens are females. I can however only accept them as young 

 birds, and I am convinced that in adult plumage both sexes are 

 similarly colored. This was thoroughly established by the re- 

 searches of the No vara Expedition, for a female kilbd in Kondul, 

 the sex of which was ascertained by dissection, exhibits an upper 

 mandible just as red as the males," and allow me to inform our 

 author, was unquestionably a male, and had been, dissection or* 

 no dissection, wrongly sexed ! 



We shot and sexed 25 adults of this species, (besides the 

 j^oung ones that we got from natives) and we knoio beyond the 

 possibility of a doubt, that Dr. Cantor and Blyth were perfectly 

 correct, and that Dr. Finsch has been too hasty in his conclu- 

 sions. 



