186 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XI. 



In Jerdon and Barnes (Appendix Jerdon) in loco citato we find the ad- 

 ditional " edge of wing whitish, uppermost tertiaries rich glossy green." 



This is right, and it is shewn in Hume and Marshall's plate, but the 

 average bird has not so bright or light a green and has it even more 

 glossy. 



The depth of the brown varies a good deal, and I am inclined to think 

 that owing to age, very old birds are the darkest, nearly black. 

 Condition of plumage in this, as in every other species of brown or black 

 bird, has a good deal to do with the colour, and brown in old plumage 

 is always much duller and paler than in the fresh. I have certain Spine- 

 tail Swifts which shows a mixture of quite light brown feathers with new 

 black ones glossed with blue, the former being merely old ones from 

 which the colouring matter has been exhausted. 



t il Bill reddish-white, rosy at the base and bluish at the tip j irides fine 

 orange-red ; legs and feet blackish with a tinge of red " (Jerdon). 



11 Bill dirty red ; cere flesh-coloured ; irides deep orange-red ; legs and 

 feet reddish-slate " (Shillingford). Of another he notes : " Bill light pink, 

 assuming a purplish tint towards gonys ; cere flesh-coloured ; irides deep 

 orange ; tarsus, web and nails dark slate, inclining to purple ; lower 

 mandible more deeply coloured than upper. 



The following note of my own may explain Shillingford's " cere." 

 Bill dull reddish-pink, deeper on mandible and darker still on gonys, 

 the base of both mandibles, more especially the maxilla near the forehead, 

 purer and brighter pink. This note was taken from an adult male. 



"Length about 24" ; wing, 10*5" ; tail, 4*25" : culmen 2'1" ; tarsus, 

 1-6" " (Salvadori). 



Female. — Similar to the male, but duller and paler, and more of a 

 smoky-brown ; the pink of the head is dingier and paler, and there is a 

 broad brown medial band from forehead over crown, and occiput and 

 (diminishing rapidly in width) on the back of the upper neck ; but the 

 most conspicuous difference is that the dull pink of the face runs on 

 unbroken over the entire chin and throat, so that there is no trace of 

 the dark band along chin and throat so conspicuous in the male 

 (Salvadori). 



The colour of the soft parts in the female seem to differ in being all of 

 a duller hue. There is only one sexed skin in the British Museum, 

 which possesses only six adult skins altogether, and this is a female. The 



