242 LIST OF BIRDS IN MANIPUE, 



the breast, sides and flanks. This plumage is the same for 

 both sexes, saving the difference in the wings above explained, 

 which is the same alike in adults, in second and in first 

 plumage. 



As the bird approaches maturity the lower surface gets 

 more and more brushed with green, the white of the chin 

 and upper throat becomes oohraceous and then brushed 

 greenish ; that of the sides of the head becomes blue, the 

 patch behind the ear-coverts first disappearing. But long 

 after the bird has in other respects assumed the adult 

 plumage, a more or less strong ochraceous tinge remains on 

 the lower tail-coverts. 



In the first plumage (which reminds one of Merula, Tiirdns, 

 and Pitta) both sexes have the entire top and back of the 

 head with the feathers dusky at their bases, vs^hite with a 

 faint bluish tinge towards their tips, and fringed all round 

 these with black ; the ear-coverts a purer white, more or 

 less tipped with a narrow line of black ; the entire mantle 

 and upper tail-coverts, the feathers greyish brown at their 

 bases, more or less green medially, and with large more or less 

 fan-shaped golden buff subterminal spots fringed with black. 

 Even the secondary greater coverts, all but the first two or three, 

 though otherwise similar to those of adults, male or female, 

 as the case may be, exhibit these conspicuous spots ; quills, 

 winglet, rest of greater coverts and tail as in adults ; entire 

 lower parts buff, richest on the breast, with everywhere, 

 except on the chin and throat (and in some there are traces 

 of it even here) narrow black tips to the feathers. Here 

 and there, especially on the abdomen, the grey dusky bases 

 of the feathers show through. 



The lower surface of the bird is just that of so many of 

 the Blackbirds and Thrushes. 



So too in the young of G. purpia^ea the lower surface is 

 just exactly that of a young Blackbird. 



The upper surface of the young viridis at once recalls, at 

 any rate so far as the mantle goes, a corresponding stage in 

 Hydrornis nipalensis. 



When I add that the eggs of Cochoa purpurea are barely 

 separable from those of Merula hoiilboul, while those of viridis 

 are very similar, and that the nests of both are clearly 

 those of Thrushes, these facts of nidifications, coupled with 

 the changes of plumage above described and their almost 

 purely frugivorous habits, are sufficient, I think, to prove 

 that the i'ochoas can have no earthly connection with Tephro- 

 dornis and Hemipus, with which Mr. Sharpe unites them. 



