284 LIST OF BIRDS IN MANIPUR, 



here and there on the back the maroon is showing through, and 

 the white shoulder patch is nearly clear. 



During February the yellow of the lower surface brightens 

 still further ;'the white on the wings generally gets quite pure ; 

 the huge maroon patches on the sides of the breast below the 

 gorget appear ; the whole upper surface becomes deep maroon, 

 still, as a rule, except in old birds on the cap, obsoletely fringed 

 with light brown, and the stripe from the gape running under 

 and round the ear- coverts and joining that which, starting from 

 the posterior angle of the eye runs over these, becomes with 

 this latter blackish. During March the ear-coverts themselves 

 become blackish, and dark or blackish spots begin often to 

 show on the maroon of the back, and the points of the forehead 

 get dusky. Just about the end of the month black becomes 

 more or less intermingled in the chin and lores. By the 

 middle of April the entire chin, upper throat, lores, cheeks, ear- 

 coverts, forehead and anterior half (nearly) of crown have be- 

 come black. This change is very rapid. I never got a bird in 

 which the change was complete before 1st April, and out of 37 

 birds that I killed at one shot on the 14th of April there were 

 15 adult males altogether, in all of which the change was 

 complete. 



The above correctly represents the general course of the 

 changes as observable in a large series, killed in each month, in 

 Manipur, Tenasserim, Cachar, Eastern Bengal ; the Sikhim 

 Terai and Bhutan Dooars arranged according to dates of killing ; 

 but two points have to be noted : First, the dates given are the 

 average ; some birds are always a little ahead, some a little 

 behind. Thus out of 37 adult males killed in January 

 (after allowing for the differences in date of each) five are 

 decidedly behind, and three distinctly in advance of the great 

 body. Second, the dates apply to adults ; in young birds, born in 

 the preceding summer, the changes are much delayed and 

 very irregular ; thus, too, birds of this age killed on the 11th 

 of April have indeed the entire black muzzle as in the adults 

 (except that the black does not advance so far on to the crown), 

 and a little maroon mingled with the broad crown and nape 

 stripes, but the whole of the rest of the plumage, above (except 

 that it is somewhat colder in tint) and below (except that the ful- 

 vous wash has disappeared) is that of the adult male in November. 



On an average I find that rather less than one-third of the 

 males are birds of the year. 



Now if any one will carefully detail the changes between 

 the 1st of May and the end of September, we shall begin to 

 understand the bird. 



