Mr. R. Phillipps,



320



the colouring of this region may be different in the sexes ; but

whether the differences are sufficient to enable one to sex an odd

bird at sight is another matter.


When my male is sitting in the garden side by side with

the odd female, on examining them through a binocular, I

observe that the blackish of the cheeks, as it extends upwards,

appears to be more profuse behind the eye in the male than in

the female; but when the comparison is made with the old female

under precisely similar circumstances—and I have examined the

three over and over again as now the one couple now the other

sit on their favourite perch—although the difference exists, it is

much less apparent. As regards age, the male (see my notes on

the three birds which appeared in May—after rectification of

sexes, as stated below) is supposed to be intermediate between

the two females. Therefore, if our premises are correct, the

blackish behind the eye is the more profuse in the old than in

the young female, and more profuse in the grown up male ( ? at

what age) than in the female at any age. In the fledgelings, the

dark colouring behind the eye is at first almost non-existent.


But have we not something pretty sure to go upon in the

colour of the eye ? I have three more or less adult examples, two

of which have the dark yellow-brown eyes I mentioned in May,

the other the pale yellow-brown eye—and the two dark-eyed birds

have now proved themselves to be of the same, and the pale-eyed

of the opposite, sex.


I am told that the two of the first five which I did not

retain also have different coloured eyes, and that they are a pair.


The last two arrivals, almost certainly a pair, were in a

show cage when I saw them ; they were crouching down, quite

mute, side by side on the bottom of the cage, but their upper

parts were well displayed, and the difference in the colouring of

the eyes at once attracted attention. But it was the pale-eyed bh'd

which appeared to be the viale, whereas, in May, it was my pale¬

eyed bird which I described as the female, and the other two as

males:—I have since ascertained that the “Immature male” of

p. 209 has the dark eye.


Facts are stubborn tilings. Little by little it dawned upon

'me that I had mistaken the sexes of my birds ; stubborn facts



