134 VISCOITNT WALDEN ON THE BIEDS 



Psittacus torquatus, Gm. S.N. i. p. 351, no. 134 (1783), ex Sonn.; Lear, lUustr. Psitt. pi. 40. 

 Psittacus loxia, Cuv. Mus. Paris, Lesson, Tr. p. 204, " Manilla," adult (1831) ; Pucherau, Rev. Mag. 



Zool. 1853, p. 163 ; Bourjot, torn. cit. pi. 94. 

 Psittacula squamo-torquata, Bourjot, Perr. pi. 97 (1837-8), ex Lear. 

 Cyclopsitta loxia (Cuv.), Bp. Eev. et Mag. Zool. 1854, p. 154. 

 Psittacus lunulata et loxias, O. Finsch, Monogr. Papag. ii. pp. 616, 618; v. Martens, J. f. O. 1866, 



p. 21, nos. 118, 117; G. R. Gray, Hand-list, nos. 8377, 8376. 

 Psittacula lunulata, Gray, Schlegel, Mus. Pays-Bas, Psittaci, p. 72. 



Hab. Luzon, both forms {Meyer) ; Mindanao, both forms ( Cuming). 

 P. lunulatus. Scop., and P. loxia, Cuv., are treated of as two distinct species by Dr. 

 O. Finsch in his admirable monograph {I. c), but seemingly with some doubt, and 

 chiefly on the ground that he had failed to find, among the numerous examples he 

 had examined, a single individual in a transition phase, — that is, combining partly the 

 distinctive characters of both. Yet as far back as 1853 Dr. Pucheran, in one of his 

 valuable essays on the types contained in the Paris Museum (I. c), more than suggested 

 that P. loxia, Cuv., was the same bird as P. torquatus, Gm. (=P. lunulatus. Scop.). 

 Cuvier's type, it seems, did display, along with the blue collar ', a few feathers, " pretes 

 a disparaitre," with yellow crescents bordered with black. Professor Schlegel {I.e.) 

 without hesitation unites the two species. 



From a note on the label of a Luzon example of true P. loxia, Cuv., marked thus by 

 Dr. Meyer " Psittacula lunulata (not loxias, which is the ^ of lunulata)," it is to 

 be inferred that Dr. Meyer considers that the two forms constitute one species. The 

 mode of expression used is, of course, not accurate ; for the individual thus noted is 

 actually P. loxia, Cuv. ; and there is evident confusion in the application of the 

 masculine symbols. But the Doctor's meaning is probably that the blue-collared bird 

 is the male of the necklaced form. Of five examples, three, with blue collars, are 

 marked as males ; one with a lunated collar and uropygium is also marked as a male ; 

 and the fifth, also with a lunated collar, as being a female. This last has the crescentic 

 markings on the lower back faintly indicated ; the three blue-collared individuals 

 do not exhibit a trace anywhere. 



From Dr. Meyer's specimens and Dr. Pucheran's remarks on Cuvier's type, the 

 following conclusions may therefore be arrived at : — first, that the blue collar is indica- 

 tive of the adult male ; secondly, that young males possess the necklaced collar, and 

 present crescentic markings on the lower back ; thirdly, that females do wear the 

 same plumage as young males. There is, however, no positive evidence to prove that 

 adult females do not put on the garb of adult males, although Dr. Meyer's somewhat 

 confused note makes it likely that they do not. 



' Dr. Pucheran does not mention the blue collar in so many words ; but he refers to the individual as 

 Cuvier's type, and that is described by Lesson {I. c.) as having the tour de la gorge bleu. Indeed the. blue 

 collar is the distinctive character of P. loxia, Cuv, 



