DESERT TRUMPETER BULLFINGH. 19 



lien, 'kekek, kekeck,' tliree or four times in saccession. Their alarm 

 note is a loud 'schak, schaok.' When hunted and caught they shriek 

 with anguish. Their notes are almost without exception so full and 

 expressive, that we wonder how such a small creature can produce 

 them. The female has not the trumpeting tone so loud as the male 

 as in spring." 



"In confinement the first egg was laid on the 24th. of April. They 

 are four in number, rather large for the bird, pale sea-green, or lighter, 

 with small spots and points of reddish brown, thinner at the smaller 

 end, and forming at the larger end a kind of crown or wreath." 



The male bird has the top of the head and nape ashy grey. The 

 back more or less brownish ash-grey, with reddish edges to the feathers; 

 the greater wing coverts pale brownish, edged with rosy red; the 

 jDrimaries are a glossy hair-brown, with their outer edges fringed with 

 rosy pink, their tips being bordered (the first three slightly, the rest 

 more broadly,) with creamy white ; in the secondaries the outer border 

 is the broadest, and the cream-colour is more deeply tinged with rosy 

 pink; the tail is emarginate, and the feathers present the same deep 

 brown colour, broadly edged with cream-colour and rosy red, as the 

 wing feathers, so that when the wings are closed, they form, with the 

 tail, a pleasing striped appearance. All the under parts (more or less), 

 the under tail coverts, feathers round the beak, and rump are rosy 

 red, mingled on the crop and abdomen with grey. 



Dr. BoUe says that when old, the males have the scapularies speckled 

 with red, and that this colour is much deeper on the back. In autumn 

 the male is less beautiful, — the red is less remarkable, and the ashy 

 grey above, changes into a dull grey brown, on which account, after 

 moulting for the first time, they have a strongly marbled appearance. 

 In this stage a reddish shade on the back is above all perceptible. 

 The beak is a rosy coral colour, which Dr. Bolle says gives it in the 

 distance the appearance of an exotic bird. Tarsi and feet rose; iris 

 brownish black. 



The female is above brownish grey, but that colour is lost in the 

 clearer tints below, which from the throat downwards, become exclu- 

 sively whitish. The upper part of the wings reddish grey. On the 

 throat and immediately under the beak clear rose; tail rosy red; 

 scapularies edged with rosy red. The greater wing coverts and tail 

 feathers like the male, only smaller, and the rose less marked; under 

 tail coverts pale reddish grey; feet paler rose than the male. No 

 bands across the wings of either sex. 



The plumage of the young differs somewhat from that of the 

 adult. When it leaves the nest it is clear light colour, or dull 



