■ 344 Notes on the Farroq^iets of India. 



Andromeda^ early in April, and after completing- the work, for 

 some reason abandoned it ; in about a week or ten days, however, 

 they returned and took possession, but were finally driven out 

 by a pair of Piciis brunnifrons which in turn, after two or three 

 days, likewise abandoned it ; the parrots however returned no 

 more, and the hole remained unoccupied. The nestling- bird has 

 •a pale yellow beak, but neither wingspot nor coloured head ; it 

 is imiformly of a pale yellowish green, with a still lighter 

 coloured ring round the neck, and the upper surface of the tail 

 exhibits a little blue. 



In the second year the head becomes of a fine bluish 

 cast, with a yellow collar round the neck, when it becomes the 

 P. ci/anocephalus, and in the third year, the head of the male 

 becomes a most beautiful rich peach blossom, shading ofii" to the 

 black ring into a soft azure blue. In the third year the full 

 plumage of the adult is acquired, and each subsequent year, for 

 sometime, only adds to its richness of colouring. 



In the male the upper mandible is yellow, the lower one the' 

 same, but sometimes with a dusky spot; the entire head full 

 rich roseate peach blossom, with plum bloom overlaying the back 

 and sides of the head ; a black patch on the chin, the lower 

 corners of which throw off a narrow black line which encircles 

 the roseate head; immediately below this ring is another of 

 verditer green, but not meeting on the throat, from whence the 

 whole fore-neck, breast, and abdomen are yellow green ; the whole 

 of the back, as far as the rump, is of a deeper or dingy yellow 

 green ; rump light bluish, with a tinge of verditer; wings green, 

 slightly tinged on the shoulder and wing coverts with verditer ; 

 quills, dull green, dusky on the inner webs, faintly edged ex- 

 ternally with yellow ; a narrow red elongated spot on the 

 shoulder of the wing ; two centre tail feathers above, cobalt blue, 

 with about two inches of the end dull whitish ; the next pair 

 pale yellow at the end {not blue, as Jerdon says,) ; tail feathers 

 beneath, with the central pair, dull blue, with dirty white ex- 

 tremity, the others yellow. There is much variation in the 

 brightness of colouring in difierent specimens. 



The female has the head plum blue and has no black collar ; 

 there is, however, a pale yellow demi-ring (hence Eranklin's 

 name of P. JlavicoUaris) . Length over all in the male, between 

 14 and 15 inches; wing, full 5^ inches; tail, 9f inches (Jerdon 

 gives only 8| inches). 



The food, as in all the others, consists of fruits and grains. 

 The flight is rapid and the note less harsh and far more musical 

 than in either P. torquatns ? or P. schisticeps. They readily 

 earn to whistle tunes, and I possessed one that whistled 



