(Jhap. XV. Birds — Colour and Nidificaiion. 461 



after tlio second or third moults they differ only in their beaks 

 having a slight greenish tinge. In the dwarf bitterns (Ardetta), 

 according to the same authority, " the male acquires his final 

 " livery at the first moult, the female not before the third or 

 " fourth moult ; in the meanwhile she presents an intermediate 

 " garb, which is ultimately exchanged for the same livery as 

 " that of the male.' So again the female Vidro perefirinus ac- 

 quires her blue plumage more slowly than the male. Mr. 

 Svsinhoe states that with one of the Drongo shrikes (Dicrurvs 

 macrdcrcun) the male whilst almost a nestling, moults his soft 

 brown plumage and becomes of a uniform glossy greenish-black ; 

 but the female retains for a long time the white striae and spots 

 on the axillary feathers ; and does not completely assume the 

 uniform black colour of the male for three years. The same 

 excellent observer remarks that in the sprmg of the second year 

 the female spoonbill (Platalea) of China resembles the male of 

 the fir.st year, and that apparently it is not until the third spring 

 that she acquires ,the same adult plumage as that possessed by 

 the male at a mugh earlier age. The female Bomhycilla carolm- 

 ensis differs very little from the male, but the appendages, which 

 like beads of red sealing-wax ornament the wing-feathers,"" are 

 not developed in her so early in life as in tiiemak In the male 

 of an Indian pariakeet (^Pnlmornis f>w micus) i,he upper mandible 

 is coral-red from his earliest youth, but in the female, as Mr. 

 Blyth has observed with caged and wild birds, it is at first black 

 and does not become red until the bird is at least a year old. at 

 which age the sexes resemble each other in all respects. Both 

 sexes of the wild turkey are ultimately furnished with a tuft of 

 bristles on the breast, but in two-year-old birds the tuft is about 

 four inches long in the male and hardly apparent in the female ; 

 when, however, the latter has reached her fourth year, it is from 

 four to five inches in length.'' 



These cases must not be confounded with those where diseased 

 or old females abnormally assume masculine characters, nor with 



*> When the male courts the fe- ' Ibis,' vol. vi. 1864, p. 366. On 



jiale, these ornaments are vibrated, the Bombycilla, Auiiubon's *Orni- 



and " are shewn off to great advan- tholog. Biography,' vol. i. p. 229. 



" tage," on the outstretched wings : On the Palseornis, see, also, ./erdon, 



A. Leith Ad,\ms, ' Field and Forest ' Birds of India,' vol. i. p. 263. 



Banibles,' 1873, p. 153. On the wild turkey, Audubon, ibid. 



*^ On Ardetta, Translation of vol. i, p 15; but I hear from .Judge 



Cuvier's 'Regne Animal,' by Mr. Caton that in lUmois the female 



Blyth, footnote, p. 159. On the very rarely acquires a tuft. Analo- 



Peregrine Falcon, Mr. Blyth, in gous cases with the females of 



Charlesworth's ' Mag. of Nat. Hist.' Petrocossyphus are given by Mr. 



to!, i. 1837, p. 304. On Dicrurus, E. B. Sharpe, ' Proc. Zoolog. Soc. 



' Ibis,' 1863, p, 44. On the Platalea, 1872, p. 496. 



