70 BIRDS OF TENASSERIM. 



Cabanis (Mus. Hein., II., 133, 1859-60) described N. malac* 

 censis a supposed new species, in the following terms : — 



" Minor, rostro breviore, graciliore ; sincipite late rubro, 

 verticem roseo-lilacinum, versus sensim rosescente ; gula jugulo- 

 que minus late rubris, caudce apieibus angustius nigris." 



On this Count Salvadori (Uccelli di Borneo, 92., 1874) 

 remarks that ci the characters given as distinctive of this 

 supposed species are exactly those of the female of N. amicta." 



The Marquis of Tweeddale {Ibis, 1877, 298) remarks on 

 this : " Count Salvadori refers N. malaccensis, Cab., to the fe- 

 male, thus assuming that the female wants the crimson pectoral 

 and pink frontal plumes. I rather incline to the belief that 

 the adult birds of both sexes are alike, and that the uniform 

 green birds belong to a young stage of plumage. One of the 

 examples obtained by Mr. Buxton is in plain green dress 

 (N. malaccensis), but has one small frontal plume, pink." 



This is hardly correct. In the first place Salvadori does not 

 assume that the female wants the crimson pectoral and pink 

 frontal plumes. In the second place the adult birds of both 

 sexes are not alike. In the third place the plain green dress 

 is not what was described as malaccensis. 



What Cabanis did describe as malaccensis may be seen by 

 a glance at the original description above quoted, and Count 

 Salvadori was perfectly correct in identifying malaccensis of 

 Cabanis with the adult females of amicta. 



We have shot and sexed scores of these birds. 



The adult males invariably have larger bills than the females. 



The following are the dimensions of bills of adult speci- 

 mens of both sexes, rejecting all specimens in which the bills 

 are at all broken at the point (a thing very common in this 

 species) and measuring the bills with compasses from the 

 frontal bone to the tip : — 



Males.— 2-28; 2-29; 2"28 ; 2-2; 2-2; 2-22; 2-39 ; 2'25; 2'26; 

 2-32 ; 2-22 ; 2'22 ; 2-39 ; 2'28 ; 23 ; 2-24 ; 2-2. 



Females.— 2-07 ; 2'0 ; 2*06 ; 2"05 ; 2'12 ; 2'07 ; 2'1 ; 215 ; 

 2-12; 2-0; 2-05; 2-0. 



Then the fully adult male has the entire forehead, except a 

 pale bluish green line along the base of the bill ; the whole or 

 at times only the upper portion of the lores, and nearly the 

 whole of the crown, what I should call peach-blossom colored, 

 shaded with lilac posteriorly. A patch at the base of the 

 lower mandible, and often more or less of the lower portion 

 of the lores, the upper portion of the throat, and a broad 

 band down the front of the neck to the breast, scarlet to 

 crimson scarlet ; there is generally a bluish peach bloom 

 line in old adult males from the anterior angle of the eye some 

 distance down aloDg the margin of the red throat patch. 



