1902.] F. Finn — General Notes on Variation in Birds. 16? 



Recently Mr. Rutledge obtained a pale ash-coloared House-crow (Corvus 

 splendens), a young bird, with dark-lead-coloured bill and! feet, and 

 wings and tail faintly barred with darker grey than the ground-colour. 



White varieties are so well known as to need little comment ; they 

 are seldom pink-eyed like albino mammals. Red often persists in such ; 

 I have seen an albino red-whiskered Bulbul (Otocompsa emeria) retain- 

 ing the red *' whiskers " and under-tail-coverts, and an albino Goldfinch 

 {Garduelis cardtielis) retaining the red face and yellow wing-bars. 



In India I have seen two pale varieties of the crimson-breasted 

 Barbet or Coppersmith (Xantholsema hsematocephala), one in the 

 Indian Museum, and one now alive at the Alipore Zoological Garden. 

 In the former (Reg. No. B5031) the plumage is yellowish white except 

 the primary-coverts and several quills from the sixth onwards, which 

 are normal. The stiff glossy frontal feathers and breast patch are pale 

 yellow instead of scarlet. The beak is yellowish white in the skin. In 

 the latter, captured adult, the red of forehead, breast, and feet persists. 

 The bill is flesh-coloured instead of black. The plumage is pale yellow, 

 irregularly marked with green. It has not changed in moulting. 



The common Ring-Parroquet (Palasornis torquatus) frequently 

 produces a yellow variety, in which the red bill in both sexes and red 

 collar of the male persists. I have also seen, besides numerous green 

 birds splashed with yellow, a bird of an even intermediate tint between 

 yellow and green. Specimens shaded with green on a yellow ground 

 are not uncommon. Mr. W. Rutledge knows of a case where two nor- 

 mally coloured wild birds constantly produced a yellow brood. 



The large Ring-Parroquet and its races {Paldeornis nepalensis, *^c.), 

 is very rarely lutinistic ; we have, however, in the Indian Museum a 

 green-tinted lutino of the large-billed Andaman race still showing the 

 red wing.patch. (Reg. No. 22071). 



The Rose-headed Parroquet (P. ci/anocephala) is not infrequently 

 yellow, when the head is pink (as in specimen 23981, Ind. Mus. Reg.). 



In the Indian Museum there is a specimen of the Blue-crowned 

 Hanging Parroquet (Loriculus galyulus) with primaries nearly all yellow 

 and mnny other yellow feathers. The bill is black as in the normal 

 birds, but the blue patch on the head is replaced by a faint red one. 

 (Reg. No. B. 342). 



I once, in England, saw a wild Song-Thrush {Tardus musicus) 

 with the tip of the tail regularly white ; but it had an abnormal-look- 

 ing patch of white on one wing also. 



The Calcutta Zoological Garden once possessed a Coucal or Crow- 

 Pheasant {Centropus sinensis) with bill and feet normally black, normal 



