BIKES. 23 



shaft-streaks ; ear-coverts dusky brown ; cheeks clear fulvous, with 

 central streaks of light brown, breaking up into irregular cross lines 

 on some of the feathers ; throat and fore neck white, with irregular 

 zigzag cross lines of light brown ; remainder of under surface of body- 

 clear fulvous, crossed with zigzag lines of brown ; under tail-coverts 

 uniform and deeper buff ; axiUaries like the breast and barred across 

 in the same manner; under wing-coverts whiter and crossed distinctly 

 with blackish bars, broader and forming a distinct patch on the 

 median lower coverts near the edge of the wing. 



The above description is taken from a young male shot near Port 

 Essington. 



An old bird, with more than half his tail-feathers blue, has his 

 plumage very much abraded and the crest-feathers reduced to 

 hair-like brown plumes. The blue ends to the wing-coverts are 

 almost entirely worn off ; but on the breast he is replacing his 

 faded plumage by a clean moult, the new feathers being very 

 broadly centred with blackish ; the under surface of the body is 

 dirty buff, with brown zigzag cross bars, becoming less distinct on 

 the throat. 



Compared with young birds, the old 21. eervina are very much 

 paler buff below and less distinctly barred underneath, the coU^r 

 round the hind neck is nearly uniform, with scarcely any remains 

 of zigzag cross-barring, whUe the head and crest are white or 

 buffy white, streaked with brown down the centre of the feathers ; 

 but the whole head is distinctly streaked, instead of being uniform 

 brown as in the young birds. The cobalt-blue on the shoulders is, 

 of course, much more brilliant and more developed than in the 

 young ones. 



The mode in which the barring on the under surface becomes 

 less and the head more streaked is well shown in an immature male 

 bird, which has the head losing its uniformity for the streaked 

 stage, and yet retains the rufous upper tail-coverts of the immature 

 stage, while the tail is only half overshaded with blue. 



The differences between the young and old specimens of Dacelo 

 cervinus seem to me perfectly comprehensible ; but the relations of 

 D. leaehii and D. oceidentalis are not so clear. There is consider- 

 able variation in length of wing throughout the whole series. 

 All our specimens of D. leaehii have more or less remains of their 

 old rufous-barred tail, but they are aU completing their change to 

 the uniform blue tail, and consequently the outer feathers are in 

 more or less irregularly blue-banded stages ; but every proof is fur- 

 nished that the outer feather wiU become perfectly blue, like the 

 corresponding stage in D. cervinus, so that the character of the barred 

 outer tail-f?ather will not hold. 



Undoubtedly D. leaehii is a larger and more powerful bird than 

 D. cervinus. It is often similarly fulvous on the breast ; but the 

 zigzag bars are coarser and are continued higher up on the throat, 

 as well as being strongly developed on the collat round the hind 

 neck. The older the bird becomes, however, it is evident that, as in 

 D. cervinus, the cross-markings on these parts become more and more 



