64 F. Finn — Plumage of Honey sucker. [No. 1, 



Note on the Seasonal change of Plumage in the males of the Purple 

 Honey sucker ( Araclmechthra asiatica) and of an analoqous American 

 bird (Coereba cyanea). — By F. Finn, B.A., F.Z.S., Deputy Super- 

 intendent, Indian Museum. 



[Received and Read January 4th, 1898.] 



Dr. Jerdon in his " Birds of India" (Vol I, p. 370) and Captain 

 Shelley, in his Monograph of the Cinnyridae, agree in assigning to the 

 male of our common Purple Honeysucker (Arachnecthra asiatica) besides 

 its characteristic dress, a plumage much resembling that of the female, 

 but marked with a broad purple streak down the ventral surface. 

 Dr H. Gadow, however, in the British Museum Catalogue volume 

 (IX, p. 58), dealing with these birds, ignores this change of plumage; 

 and Mr. Oates, in his "Birds of British Burmah " (Vol. I, p. 322), 

 states that the change does not take place in that country, " for f ull- 

 plumaged males may be obtained all the year round." He believes also 

 that the young males of this species are clothed in female plumage all 

 through their first winter, and thinks that the abundance of such has 

 probably given rise to the belief in a change of plumage. 



With all due deference to the opinion of so excellent an ornithologist 

 as Mr. Oates, however, I venture to suggest that he is wrong, and that 

 the authors previously cited are right, with respect to this change of 

 plumage, at any rate in Indian examples. 



In the first place, the presence of f ull-plumaged birds all the year 

 round is of very little weight in disproving this change. Marked in- 

 dividual variations occur in the period of change of plumage by birds 

 which possess more than one dress, and specimens of such species may 

 be found in more or less full-plumage and undress at the same date, 

 as I have myself seen in Ducks and Dabchicks. 



This consideration disposes, I think, of Mr. Oates' first argument, 

 but I have better evidence to bring forward. 



About the middle of July last year (1897) in view of my approaching 

 visit to England on leave, I procured a number of Honeysuckers in 

 the hope of being able to take some alive to the London Zoological 

 Gardens, where such birds have never previously been exhibited. All 

 the birds I kept, with one exception, were Arachnecthra zeylonica, but 

 I had, and brought home safely, one male specimen of the species I am 

 now considering. 



This bird, when I got it, was in heavy moult, and mostly purple 

 in colour, but to my great surprise (I had taken it for a young male 

 assuming full-plumage) it gradually lost this hue, and by the time I 



