1903.] OF TUK VKLLU\V-J51LLKD CARDINAL. 351 



change is so extreiuely .slow that, not one but seventy or eighty 

 moults would have been I'equii'ed to show all the transitions. 



The first thing which one notices is that the buff of the head 

 and throa^ becomes dulled and deepened (perhaps the '" ochreous- 

 brown" described in the Museum Catalogue of Birds, vol. xii. 

 p. 812) ; then little flecks of crimson appear dotted over the 

 surface, which increase in extent fi'om day to day until the full 

 brilliant crimson of the head is attained ; but shortly after the 

 appearance of these ci-imson flecks on the chin a small blackish 

 spot appears at the extremity of the gular streak, which works 

 i-egularly backwards until it has deepened the distal third of that 

 streak (each feather, however, being left reddish at its base) ; then 

 it throws out a flanking line which extends i-apidly up each side of 

 the beard-like streak, whilst fi-om behind the chin a thiixl central 

 line begins to travel in the opposite direction. With the encroach- 

 ment of the distal patch and the extension laterally of these three 

 lines, the whole of the gular sti'eak becomes black with reddish 

 bases to the feathers ; simultaneously the flanks become paler and 

 the edges of the feathers white, offering an indistinctly streaky 

 appearance ; the back also becomes blacker, but the blackish 

 streaking of the mandible and dark tip to the maxilla are 

 generally more or less well-defined, though they appear to be 

 sometimes lost at a very early stage. 



At this period the bird has thei'efore assumed the characters 

 of Paroaria cerviccdis ; but, unfortunately for the validity of that 

 species, they continue still to develop ; the beak becomes wholly 

 bright ochreous, the tarsi become wholly flesh-pink, the reddish 

 bases disappear fi-om the feathers of the throat, the grey almost 

 entirely disappears from the flanks, the upper surface becomes 

 quite black ; and oui- P. cerviccdis has become adult P. capitata. I 

 am afraid the fact is quite indisputable. 



The habitat of the species should therefoi-e stand as — Argentine 

 Republic and Paraguay northward to Bolivia and Matto Grosso. 



It is possible, as Dr. Sharpe suggests (Catalogue of Birds, xii. 

 p. 814, footnote), that P. gula^^is may be a further variation of the 

 species ; but I should think it more likely that it was distinct. 

 The variation in the amount of black in the i-egion of the eye 

 may be due to immaturity, as in the black of the throat of 

 P. cervicalis, which does not cover the bases of the feathei's. It is 

 certain that not one of the Cardinals recently imported showed a 

 trace of the black fusiform patch over the lores and behind the 

 eye of P. gidaris : nor did any of them show the slaty maxilla 

 illustrated in the Museum Catalogue (vol. xxii. pi. xvi.) ; but pei-haps 

 this was an artist's license, like the i/aised crests on the crowns of 

 figures 2 to 6 of that plate, — birds which are perfectly incapable 

 of erecting the feathers on their crowns like P. cucidlata. 



