160 



12 



of approaching rufous on these parts. Total length 7'7 inches, culmen 09, wing 4 - 2, tail 35, tarsus 105. 

 Another specimen of Dr. Maingay's collecting hears date December 5th, 1865, and is altogether in very 

 interesting blue-and-red plumage. As might be expected from the date at which the bird was obtained, it is 

 in winter dress, that is, all over the back there is the ashy-brown shade characteristic of the plumage at this 

 season of the year, though on the crown the disappearance of some of these dusky edgings causes the brighter 

 blue of the approaching spring livery to show. So much for the upper surface of the body. On the under- 

 side, the throat and breast are blue, the latter plentifully crossed with thickly lying margins of blackish, with a 

 narrow edging of dull white ; the belly chestnut, with whitish margins to the feathers, these being, like the 

 dusky edgings of the breast, signs of the winter dress. All over the belly the approaching blue shade, which is 

 to overspread and render uniform blue the entire under surface of the body, is apparent. This specimen seems 

 to prove, beyond a doubt, that which we have hinted at before, viz. that after the bird has attaiued its beautiful 

 blue-and-red livery it again passes into a winter plumage, distinguished as before by dusky margins to the 

 feathers, which produce a somewhat mottled appearance, and that during this second, or it may be third 

 winter, the blue abdominal plumage begins to be assumed. This last specimen measures as follows : — Total 

 length 8 inches, culmen TO, wing 4-75, tad 33, tarsus Tl. 



Celebes. The two specimens which we have before referred to, in the collection of Messrs. Salvin 

 and Godman, measure as follows : — Total length 8 - 5-9 - inches, culmen 095, wing 4 - 65-4-7, tail 3-3-3 - 4, 

 tarsus IT. 



Philippines. From this locality the species was first described, and a figure of it in blue-and-red plumage 

 is given in the ' Planches Enluminees.' We have only seen one specimen, and that is the young bird to which 

 we have so often referred in the course of this essay, — a most important specimen, as exhibiting the first 

 approach of a rufous belly from a spotted plumage. Total length 8 - 5 inches, culmen - 95, wing 4-65, tad 3-4, 

 tarsus IT. 



Hainan. Mr. Swinhoe only possesses one specimen from this island, in which he was the first European 

 naturalist to place a foot. It is a male, procured on the 11th of March, I860, in complete blue-and-red 

 plumage, exhibiting remains of winter dress only on the head, where there are a few faint traces of dusky 

 margins. Total length 76 inches, culmen 0'95, wing 4'7, tail 3T, tarsus 1T5. 



Formosa. We have quoted [supra, p. 5) Mr. Swinhoe's remarks as to the species in Formosa. We 

 have before us no less than eleven specimens collected by him in that island. Five are in spotted plumage, 

 these being considered by Mr. Swinhoe to be females. The dates attached to three out of the five are 

 November and December 1865, and, according to our account of the changes of plumage in this species, would 

 be young birds of the year. They measure: — Total length 7 - 2-8 - inches, culmen O85-T0, wing 4 - 3-4 - 6, 

 tail 2'8-3'3, tarsus T05-1T. Of the six birds in blue-and-red plumage there are two killed in March, which 

 have remains of the mottling on the throat, and, according to our explanation, would be immature males in 

 their second spring. Two more, killed in October and November, have beautiful remains of this mottling 

 and would either be immature males in their second autumn, or perhaps the third. The other two are in 

 winter livery, thickly covered with white edgings to the whole of the under surface, more thickly, indeed, than 

 any which we have yet examined, and all the feathers on the abdomen are turning to blue, thus endorsing 

 our belief that the « hole blue plumage commences to be assumed in the winter after the bird has bred in the 

 blue-and-red dress. No date attaches to these examples, which are in the collections of Lord Walden and 

 Messrs. Salvin and Godman, and we think that Mr. Swinhoe canuot have had them before him when he refers 

 to the constancy of the red belly in the Formosan specimens. Measurements as follows : — Total length 

 7-2-7-8 inches, culmen 0-9-1 -0, wing 4 - 7-4 - 8, tail 3 - 0-3 - 2, tarsus IT. 



China. In 'The Ibis' for 1862 (p. 307), Mr. Swinhoe writes: — "I have repeatedly shot specimens of 

 Petrocincla manillensis without a tinge of ferruginous on the underparts, and uudistinguishable from examples 

 of P. pandoo received from Mr. Blyth ; I cannot therefore help agreeing with that gentleman, in thinking that 

 both of the so-called species may be referred to P. cyanea, the red tints of the belly and vent being probably 



