BIRDS OP TENASSERIM. 65 



orange buff, slightly shaded with olivaceous on the breast and 

 sides, and with a faint tinge of rosy here and there on the 

 abdomen. The wings are as in the adult female, but the bar- 

 rings on the outer webs of the secondaries are comparatively 

 broad and far apart, as described ia the young males. 



At this stage the central tail feathers very generally want 

 the black tippings ; a little later a crimson tinge begins to 

 appear on the rump, and the abdomen acquires a beautiful 

 rosy orange tinge, but the broad barring of the secondaries 

 remains for long an indication of immaturity. 



Every male of our large Tenasserim series is distinctly 

 duvaucelli. We have obtained no specimen in this province 

 referable to ruiilus, Vieill., orrophaeus, Cab., but from the 

 neighbourhood of Malacca and Singapore we have obtained 

 numerous adult males of this latter species or supposed species, 

 which differs in having, in the perfect adults, the rump and 

 upper tail-coverts uniform with the back, and in having the 

 lower parts a somewhat dingier and less bright crimson, with 

 a greater tendency to pale excessively towards the vent and 

 lower tail-coverts. The birds have been described as larger 

 and with stouter bills, and it does appear to me that there 

 is some truth in this, but the most careful measurements 

 of tails and wings fail to show any decided superiority in size, 

 and though the bills may be broader on the average at the 

 base, it is impossible to establish this when a series of both 

 are measured. 



How the females of the two forms are to be distinguished 

 I am unable to say. We have not yet met with in the 

 Malayan Peninsula any fully adult female entirely devoid of 

 all tinge of crimson on the rump. We have specimens entirely 

 devoid of this, but then the comparatively broad banding of 

 the outer webs of the secondaries shows that they are not 

 mature, and then again we have specimens which are mature 

 by the wing, which show extremely little of the crimson a 

 mere tinge, or patches here and there, but we have these equally 

 from Tenasserim, where we have never seen the male rutilus* 

 and from the southern portion of the Malay Peninsula, where 

 these latter are common, and we have among the Tenasserim 

 females birds exhibiting all degrees of amount of red on the 

 rump, from the merest trace to what I have described as the 

 plumage of the adult bird. 



On the one hand it is extremely unlikely that we should 

 have obtained several female rutilus in Tenasserim and no 

 males ; on the other hand, it is extremely improbable that none 

 of our numerous females from the south of the Malay Pen- 

 insula should belong to this species, where so many of our 

 males from the same locality unquestionably do. I am 



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