on the Smaller Red-headed Cardinals. 65


o the British Museum Catalogue of Birds was published, there

were only two skins of P. capitata and two skins of P. cervicalis

in the collection. The specific differences in the key amount to

this, that P. capitata is said to have no black on the upper man¬

dible and the legs yellow; whereas P. cervicalis is said to have

the upper mandible black and the legs blackish.


Now, in the first place the legs of P. capitata when

living, are flesh-pink, and the yellow which appears in the legs

after death is due to natural discoloration ; in the second place

the legs of P. cervicalis are also flesh-pink in life and only the

younger birds show any appreciable quantity of leaden grey on

the front, whilst the amount of this colouring varies considerably

in individuals.


In the second place the blacking of the upper mandible,

as shown in the plate of the Museum Catalogue, only extends

from the tip along the culmen and tomium. In one of my four

examples this blackening has disappeared from the beak with

the exception perhaps of a faint line along the culmen (which

doubtless will disappear later) whilst it varies in extent in all

four specimens.


When characters usually associated with youth are not

only seen to be extremely variable in individuals but to disappear

with advanced age; what is one to do? But there is another

point— P. capitata has a black throat, whereas P. cervicalis has

the throat brown with reddish bases to the feathers : that looks

like a good character; only my most advanced bird, in addition

to its almost perfectly yellow bill and flesh-pink legs, has

acquired a black throat.


I am afraid, therefore, that the supposed adults of P.

cetvicalis are actually P. capitata in imperfectly matured

colouring, and that the young male of P. capitata in the Museum

is a variation in which the blackening of the beak and legs has

not been developed, or else has been lost before the head and

throat have acquired their adult colouring.


If it is possible, as Dr. Sharpe suggests, that P. cervicalis

may merge into P. gularis, although the illustration in the



