640 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. vol.48. 



Meyer, A. B., and Wiglesworth, L. W. — The Birds of Celebes and 

 the Neighbouring Islands, vol. 1, 1898, pp. 279-283. 



Hartert, Ernst. — Die Vogel der Palaarktischen Fauna, vol. 2, 

 pt. 1, February, 1912, pp. 886-887. 



The present species is very distinct from all of its allies, and easily 

 recognizable by its nearly uniform rufous plumage. The female 

 in color closely resembles the male, is of about the same size, and 

 sometimes is not with certainty distinguishable. It differs, however, 

 usually in being rather duller above, with a less pronounced tinge of 

 magenta, and somewhat lighter below. There is apparently more 

 evidence of the latter difference in some subspecies than in others. 



The fully grown juvenal plumage differs from the adult stage as 

 follows: Upper portion of head and body darker and duller, usually 

 with little or no wash of magenta, the back, scapulars, rump, and 

 lower cervix, dark sooty brownish or even somewhat blackish (in 

 Entomothera coromanda rufa with as heavy a wash of magenta as the 

 adult); median metallic rump feathers rich bright sapphire blue; 

 wings and tail darker, duller, partly sooty brownish, with generally 

 much less tinge of magenta; sides of head darker and duller, usually 

 without magenta wash, the auriculars plain dark, more or less sooty, 

 brown, the subocular and subauricular regions ochraceous, commonly 

 mixed with whitish and spotted with dusky brown; sides of neck 

 dusky brownish or blackish; lower surface, including the lining of 

 wing, usually much paler, the throat more extensively whitish, the 

 lower breast, abdomen, and crissum in nearly all the races very pale, 

 even partly whitish, the breast very dull tawny; breast very thickly, 

 abdomen more sparingly, marked with squamate feather-tips of dark 

 brown or blackish; bill more or less dusky. 



The " first autumn/' or rather post-juvenal, plumage is in most 

 respects more like the adult, from which it differs in nearly or quite 

 lacking the magenta tinge of upper parts; in having sapphire blue 

 median rump feathers; paler, often even partly whitish, lower surface; 

 and dusky edgings to most of the feathers of throat, breast, and upper 

 abdomen. These dark margins comparatively soon wear off, but 

 the bird does not acquire the richly colored fully adult plumage until 

 it is at least a year old, probably just before its first breeding season. 

 The broad light stripe on the middle portion of lower back and 

 rump, though usually silvery whitish, sometimes blue, in the adult, 

 is always blue in the immature bird. 



The molt of this species is not well illustrated by the series of speci- 

 mens at hand. There are only two dated examples in molt: A male 

 Entomothera coromanda ochrothorectis 1 (No. 22175, J. H. Fleming), 

 taken, December 5, 1909, at Rio Butas, Mindoro Island, Philippine 

 Islands, in post-juvenal plumage, just passing into the adult state; 



» See p. 652. 



