THE COPPERSMITH. 89 



At his meals, too, the Coppersmith is quitely energetic, 

 •eating a very large quantity for his size, as indeed 

 he needs to do, his diet seeming to be very imperfectly 

 assimilated, as is the case with many other fruit- 

 eating birds. A curious fact about the Coppersmith 

 is his liability to albinism, or rather lutinism, for the 

 pale forms of green birds are yellow, not white. A 

 beautiful specimen of a lutino Coppersmith was, 

 when this book was written, in the Calcutta Zoo, 

 and was interesting in that the red on the plumage 

 and legs persisted, although the bill was fleshy white, 

 and only a little of the green feathering was to be 

 seen, in the wings and tail mostly. Of course even 

 if these pallid birds could hold their own with the 

 normally coloured ones, they would still be at a 

 disadvantage in the struggle for existence, since their 

 colour would be no protection ; but the red on the 

 present bird showed that it had moulted at least once, 

 and so managed to exist for a year at all events. The 

 Coppersmith must, however, be a singularly successful 

 species, for it is not only very common but has a 

 wide range east of India to the Philippines. In 

 this respect it has the advantage of our other Calcutta 

 species, the Blue-cheeked Barbet above mentioned, 

 a very showy bird as large as a thrush, with sky- 

 blue in place of primrose-yellow on the cheeks and 

 ithroat. This bird is less common in Calcutta than 



