LESSER FLOIIIKIK. 131 



dirty whitish yellow. Length 18 to 19 inches; wing 8 ; tail 4 ; 

 bill at front 1 T % ; tarsus barely 4. Weight 16 to 18 ozs. 



The female has the prevalent tone of her plumage pale fulvous- 

 yellow, the feathers of the head, back, wings, and tail, clouded 

 and barred with deep brown, those on the head mostly brown ; the 

 fore-neck with two irregular interrupted streaks, increasing on the 

 lower neck and breast, the lower plumage thence being unspotted 

 and albescent ; the hind neck is finely speckled with brown ; the 

 chin and throat white ;. the first three primaries, as in the male, un- 

 spotted brown; wing-coverts with only a few bars; axillaries 

 brown. 



Bill, legs, and irides as in the male, but the irides generally 

 unclouded yellow. Length 19 to 21 inches ; wing 9|; tail nearly 

 5 ; bill at front 1J ; tarsus 4J. Weight 20 to 24 ozs. 



The male, in winter dress, closely resembles the female, but has 

 always- some white on the shoulder of the wing; and some of the 

 wing-coverts also partially white; the under wing-coverts being dark 

 brown, whilst in the female they are fulvous. Of course during 

 the vernal and autumnal moults, male birds with every gradation- 

 of colour will be met with, and some of these are figured in the 

 Bengal Sporting Magazine, and in B danger s Voyage. The differ- 

 ence between the size of the male and female is much more marked 

 in this species than in the last. 



Franklin and Sykes having,, in their respective Catalogues, pro- 

 nounced the common Florikin of Central and Southern India 

 distinct from the Black Florikin, I entered at some length in my 

 Catalogue, and also in my Illustrations, into this subject, and from 

 the latter work I extract the following observations : — 



" My reasons for believing the Black and the common Florikin 

 to be one and the same bird, may be here briefly recapitulated. 



lstly. "All Black Florikin hitherto examined have been male birds-. 



2ndlj. " The Black Florikin agrees exactly in size, and com- 

 parative dimensions, with the male of the common Florikin, as 

 described fully by Colonel Sykes, but more especially in the 

 length of wing, and acumination of the primary quills, the points 

 insisted on by him, and most correctly so, as the essential points 

 of difference from the female. 



