BIRDS OF TENASSERIM. 121 



Though collecting vigorously about Malewoon and Banka- 

 soon, from April to July 1877, and continually about the loca- 

 lities where I at the same season obtained specimens in 1875 

 and 1876, I did not meet with a single bird. 



It has a rapid flight, and you often see small parties of 

 them flike Loriculus) flying about round and round over the 

 tops of the trees apparently for fun or exercise, now settling 

 for a moment, then off again, whirling round and round, and 

 all the time whistling at the tops of their voices. — W. D.] 



Davison shot andsexed 25 specimens of this species, young 

 and old, in Tenasserim and the Malay Peninsula, and I can state 

 positively that in the adult female the cap is vinaceous or pur- 

 plish vinaceous ; the sides of the head and lores very pale brown, 

 more or less tinged or overlaid with this color, and the throat 

 yellowish, the feathers more or less dark-shafted. 



Younger females have the top and sides of the head browner 

 and less purple. The young of both sexes have the head entire- 

 ly green, generally with a tinge of blue upon the forehead. 



It is, I think, absolutely certain that the females do not, as 

 supposed possible by Dr. Finsch (Die Papagein, II., 615), ever 

 assume the blue head, as out of I'd adults with blue heads, sexed 

 by dissection,* not one was a female, while in company with these 

 were shot five clearly adult birds with vinaceous caps, all of 

 which were females. 



In the young females, the red brown begins to appear on 

 the occiput. Most of the quite young birds of both sexes 

 entirely want the red wing spot, but it appears very soon, and 

 apparently earlier in some specimens than in others. 



How the change from the green head to the blue is effected 

 in the male I cannot yet positively say, because I have 

 one nearly perfectly plumaged male, shot on the 24th of 

 December, in which the blue of the head is still a good deal mot- 

 tled with green feathers, and a certain amount of greenish is in- 

 termingled with the dusky of the back ; the rest of the plumage 

 being that of the perfect adult. On the other head, I have ano- 

 ther young male, killed on the 23rd of April, entirely in the green 

 plumage (except of course the blue patch on the lower back), 

 except that 3 or 4 feathers of the upper back have assumed a 

 dusky tinge, and that vinaceous brown feathers are intermingled 

 in the green of the cap. 



I cannot at present reconcile the discordant indications 

 afforded by these two specimens. 



In the adult males the upper mandible is orange vermilion ; 

 the lower mandible is dusky or dull reddish brown, or some- 

 times pale horny streaked with dusky ; the legs and feet are pale 



* Some shot in Tenasserim and some further south in the Malay Peninsula. 



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