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blackish bars, which, however, are very indistinct; scapulars, as well as the lower back and rump, 

 tipped with fulvous white, each feather having a narrow bar of black before the apical tip ; least wing- 

 coverts barred and tipped in exactly the same manner ; median, greater, and primary coverts blackish 

 brown, externally margined with bluish grey, and rather conspicuously tipped with white; quills 

 blackish brown, externally margined with a narrow edging of ashy grey, all the feathers tipped with 

 white ; tail blackish brown, externally edged with ashy grey, inclining to bluish towards the base of the 

 feather and to white at the tip : under surface of the body creamy white, with a slight rusty tint on 

 most of the feathers; all the plumes plainly margined with blackish, producing a strongly mottled 

 appearance ; the lower part of the belly, flanks, and abdomen, as well as the under wing- and tail- 

 coverts, more decidedly tinged with rusty, but also more plainly barred across with blackish, not 

 escalloped as on the upper part of the breast. 



Obs. The specimen just described is in the collection of Messrs. Salvin and Godman, received by them in 

 exchange from the Leiden Museum. The original label states that it is a male, procured in Celebes by 

 Von Rosenberg on the 27th of September, 1863. A female shot by the same collector on the 2nd of 

 October is very similar, but has rather a clearer shade of rusty colour on the lower parts. A young 

 female procured at Amoy on the 12th of September, 1859, is again similar, but is in rather better 

 plumage, and seems to have a more distinct shade of blue on the upper parts, and the underparts 

 darker and not so distinctly mottled. Two birds in Mr. Swinhoe's collection, obtained at Takow and 

 Fungshan, in Formosa, in November and December 1865, agree exactly with the Celebean example 

 first mentioned ; they are females, and the latter is beginning to show a shade of blue ou the hinder 

 neck and upper part of the back, as also a slighter tint of deeper russet on the flanks and sides of the 

 body. These are all the specimens which have come under our notice which are sexed and may 

 positively be identified as young birds of the year : at once it is noticed that the young birds of 

 P. solitarius do not show any advance to maturity in the autumn of the year in which they are hatched, 

 while we know that the male of P. cyanus gets blue in his first autumn ; so that there is a difference in 

 the growth of the Eastern species at the outset. We have also before us two females lent us by 

 Mr. Swinhoe, who collected them himself at Fungshan in January 1866, and Amoy in April of the 

 same year. As might be expected, no difference is exhibited by the first-named specimen, which is in 

 the full winter plumage of the young bird; but the second has more blue on the back, and the mottling 

 on the breast is certainly more obscure, that is to say, the edgings to the feathers are not nearly so 

 distinct on the breast, which loses somewhat of its previous escalloped appearance. There, we regret to 

 say, ends our authentic history of the female of P. solitarius. If we may judge from the fact that a 

 specimen killed as late as April shows no trace of approaching adolescence, we may suppose that, like 

 P. cyanus, the female does not gain its adult dress so soon as the male, if, indeed, it ever gets out of the 

 spotted plumage. We have little doubt that it does do this, and that it eventually becomes similar to 

 the male, like its European congener, taking no doubt a longer time before its full change of plumage 

 is completed, as does P. cyanus. Out of all the numerous specimens examined by us of the Eastern 

 Blue Rock-Thrush, in the blue-and-red or whole blue plumage, not one is labelled female — all are 

 marked males. As the question seems never to have been mooted before, and as all naturalists have 

 supposed that the male was particoloured and the female spotted, we may be allowed to question the 

 correctness of some of the determinations of these sexes, inasmuch as every collector, in the present 

 state of our knowledge, would not hesitate to sex the birds as above, without any exact dissection of 

 the specimen. 



As regards the males, however, we are able to give more definite information ; and the first specimen which 

 we examine is a young bird in spotted dress, now in Lord Walden's collection. This bird was shot by 

 Mr. Leopold Layard, in the Philippine island of Negros, in March 1871. It must be remembered that 



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