82 How to Sex Cage Birds. 



stripe bounding the shaft for sonic distance and then uniting across 

 it. I have not noticed this chararter in young birds, which also ;ire 

 less sharply barred, and show indications of pale spots inside the 

 outer bar of the feathers ; they are not blotched with black, even 

 in male birds, until the change to adult plumage has commenced. 



Australian Cat-Bird (Mhvrcedua viridis). 



The sexes of what the Zoological Society calls the " Green Bower- 

 Birds" have not been differentiated in the Museum Catalogue, but 

 I should expect to find a shorter wing in the female than in 

 the male. 



Spotted Bowkr-Bikd (Chlamydodera maculata). 



The female is smaller than the male, has ao lilac baud on the 

 nape, and has faint dusky bars on the under parts. 



Regent-Bird (Sericulus melinus). 



Dr Sharpe thus describes the female : "Different from the male. 



General colour above brown, mottled with white centres to the 

 feathers, edged with black ; scapulars like the back : wing-coverts 

 and quills plain brown, the latter dusky brown on the inner webs : 

 the innermost secondaries with an irregular white spot at the tip; 

 upper tail-coverts brown, more dusky on the inner web; forehead 

 light brown, mottled with minute dusky tips to the feathers ; hinder 

 ciown and occiput black ; sides of head, eyebrow, and nape reddish- 

 brown, mottled with dusky edges to the feathers; hind neck whitish, 

 with dusky margins, followed by a patch of black across the lower 

 hind neck; lores and base of forehead burly-whitish ; cheeks reddish- 

 brown, like the sides of the face; chin and sides of throat light 

 reddish, with the centre and lower part of throat black; remainder 

 of under surface of body whity-brown, uniform on the abdomen, the 

 breast and sides of the body spotted with blackish-brown margins to 

 the feathers; the thighs and under tail-coverts reddish-brown ; under 

 wing-coverts and axillaries like the breast, and barred across with 

 dusky brown; quills brown below, Light reddish along the inner 

 web" (Catalogue of Birds, vol. vi. p. 396). 



Dr Sharpe makes the female an inch longer than the male, and 

 its wing a quarter of an inch longer; this difference in length of 

 wing would probably not compensate for the extra weight which it 

 would have to support, and thus the male would still have the 

 advantage when flying. 



The Paradise Birds (Paradiseidce), when imported, are so expensive 

 that I hardly think it advisable to consider them in the present 

 treatise. I shall therefore proceed direct to the (Jorrhhr, 



