NOTE ON CARCINEUTES AMABILIS. 485 



ordinary C. pulchelhis, and I am inclined to consider Mr. Hume's 

 new Kingfisher to be likewise identical. I challenged Mr. 

 Keulemans at once as to the correctness of his drawing in the 

 * monograph,' but he was certain that it was correct, and that 

 the specimen figured had no rufous collar ; nor have I any 

 reason to doubt this assertion, for I have a specimen now before 

 me from Java in which the rufous collar is entirely concealed. 

 Mr. Hume says that " on lifting the feathers it is always 

 apparent enough, but in the Pegu birds it is absolutely want- 

 ing/' This will not apply to the Siamese specimen referred to, 

 for although the blue head appears to be continuous with the 

 back, on examining the plumes of the hind neck, traces of the 

 rufous collar can be found still staining the blue feathers, while 

 in a beautiful skin, prepared by Mr. Wallace, the rufous collar 

 is shaded either by approaching or disappearing blue. What I 

 mean is, that the blue supersedes the rufous by a gradual change 

 of feather and not by a moult. I regret the fact that no 

 mention is made of this subject in my monograph, where I 

 ought not to have overlooked such an important difference ; but 

 I have examined many specimens since, and I incline to an 

 opinion that the rufous collar disappears with age, for the Java 

 birds, which I mention above as having a rufous collar concealed 

 by the blue, is quite a nestling, with the horny tip to his little 

 black beak, and with his wings and tail not half grown. This 

 shows that the young male resembles the old bird from the 

 nest. 



On comparing Malacca females, I think that there is so much 

 variation in the extent of the ochre and black banding as to 

 dispel the characters of the female C. amabilis ; one of them might 

 be described as ci ochraceous, comparatively narrowly banded 

 with black/' This specimen has a very few bars on the 

 breast, and with the darker coloration of the back the breast 

 seems to become more thickly barred, and a delicate bluish 

 or lilac lustre is also apparent on the latter part. Until, there- 

 fore, some further explanation of the plumages of these birds is 

 brought forward, I must give ray verdict against the recognition 

 of Carcineutes amabilis as a species. 



E. B. SHARPE. 



Mr. Sharpe's view is most probably correct, but what I 

 should be led to suspect is, that the Pegu race wants the rufous 

 collar, that the Javan bird has it, and that in intermediate 

 localities intermediate forms occur. If this could be shown to b© 



