PAL^OENIS EUPATEIUS. 169 



to the eye ; occiput and cheeks pervaded with a greyish-blue tinge ; a broad black mandibular stripe passing down 

 and across the side of the neck, where it meets a rose collar which encircles the hind neck ; on the secondary 

 wing-coverts a dark red patch ; 1st primary and inner webs of remaining quills dark brown, the former with a 

 bluish and fine yellow edge ; bases of secondaries washed with blue ; central tail-feathers passing from the base into 

 blue, and thence into yellowish at the tips : under surface of tail yellowish ; beneath dingy or faded green, 

 brightening on the lower flanks and sides of the abdomen ; under wing and under tail-coverts pale green. 



Female. Total length 17 to 18 inches ; wing 7-5 to 7-8 ; tail 9-0 to 10-0; greatest depth of upper mandible 0-7. 

 Iris dingy yellowish white, with darkish inner circle : bill, legs, and feet as in male. 

 The female wants the black mandibular stripe and rose collar. 



Immature male. Similar to the female in plumage, but generally larger, attaining a total length of about 19 inches 

 in the first year. In some the rose collar is present in an imperfect state ; but these are probably birds of the 

 second year. The iris is greenish white generally. 



Obs. The Ceylonese race of this Parrakeet is, like many other representatives of Indian species inhabiting Ceylon, 

 smaller than the continental ; for although very large examples of males are sometimes met with, this sex is, as a 

 rule, shorter in the wing and tail, and possesses a smaller bill than most members of it from India, while a still 

 greater disparity exists between individuals of the other sex from the two localities. Three adult males from 

 peninsular India and the JS T .W. Provinces in the national collection measure in the wing 8-3, 9-2, and 8-2 inches, 

 and the tail in the second attains as much as 13-4, with the bill 0-85 in height at the cere ; the mandibular stripe 

 in some Indian individuals is very broad. Mr. Ball gives the wing-measurements of 2 males from Chota Xagpur 

 as 8-65 and 8-5, and those of the tail 11-6 and 1.2-0 : the corresponding dimensions of two females from the same 

 district are 8-2, 8-35, and 12-2, 12-0. In the north and north-west of India a race exists with a glaucous blue 

 tinge on the head, and likewise larger than the Ceylonese, which Mr. Hume considers deserving of subspecific 

 rani under the title of Pal. sivalensis of Hutton. In Burmah and the Andaman Islands another is characterized 

 by its larger bill as P. magnirostris of Ball. This latter is no larger in the wing than Indian examples, but as~ 

 regards the bill the upper mandible attains, in some instances, the great height at cere of 0-96. Lord Tweeddale, 

 however, received individuals from this locality smaller in the bill than Ceylonese ; and though Mr. Hume remarks 

 that these were probabty females, yet they must have been compared with individuals of the same sex from 

 Ceylon. 



Distribution. — This fine Parrakeet is a common and widely diffused species in Ceylon. It appears to be 

 as much entitled to the name of Alexandrine Parrakeet, in memory of the great Emperor whose voyagers 

 brought it from the East, as the Indian bird ; for it would be difficult to assign the true locality whence it 

 was first procured in those days of yore. The old writer WiUughby, in his ' Ornithology/ published in 1678, 

 remarks of this species, which lie calls the " Ring Parrakeet of the ancients " : — " This was the first of all the 

 Parrots brought out of India into Europe, and the only one known to the ancients for a long time, to wit, 

 from the time of Alexander the Great to the age of Nero, by whose searchers (as Pliny witnesseth) Parrots 

 were discovered elsewhere, viz. in Gagandi, an island of Ethiopia.-" Edwards says that his plate was taken 

 from a specimen brought alive to London in one of the East-India Company's ships. 



To return, however, to its distribution in Ceylon, it is found throughout the north of Ceylon, from 

 Chilaw upwards, more particularly along the seaboard round to Batticaloa, where it is very abundant indeed. 

 In some portions of this long line of coast its presence is notably wanting ; for instance, at Trincomalie it is 

 rarely seen, although 15 miles to the north of it and on the south of the Bay it is common. In the jungles 

 of the interior it is locally distributed. In the south-east I found it tolerably plentiful in the Wellaway 

 Korale, from which locality it ascends in the dry season to the Haputale ranges. In the scrubby maritime 

 district of Hambantota it is replaced by the next species. It occurs here and there in small numbers 

 throughout the southern and western Provinces, and in the Kandyan district is not unfrequently met with in 

 the dry season ; and in Madulsinia I have seen it as high as 3500 feet. Mr. Bligh has observed it on one 

 occasion at Nuwara Elliya. It is tolerably numerous along the base of the Matale ranges from Dambulla to 

 Kurunegala. 



In the Peninsula of India it is found, according to Jerdon, in the forests of Malabar, in the hilly region 

 of Central Indian, and in the northern Circars, and occasionally in parts of the Carnatic ; in the extreme 



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