AVICULTUBAL EXPERIENCES. 249 



The colouring of the soft parts in birds can only be studied 

 when the latter are either living or recently dead. The skins in 

 collections give no idea of them, and stuffed specimens, based 

 upon incorrect information, sometimes entirely misrepresent 

 them. Here the aviculturist can greatly assist the cabinet 

 naturalist or the taxidermist, if these men will accept his state- 

 ments in good faith ; and in this respect my late colleague, Dr. 

 R. Bowdler Sharpe, showed a right scientific feeling, in that he 

 was always glad of any facts I could give him respecting the 

 colouring of the beaks, irides, naked face-patches, and feet of 

 species in my possession. 



To cite a few instances in which errors have occurred may 

 perhaps be useful. The Spectacled Thrush (Trochalopterum 

 canorum) is so called because the eye is enclosed in a lozenge- 

 shaped ashy-grey naked patch ; yet this very characteristic feature 

 is omitted from descriptions taken from the dried skins. The 

 colouring of the iris in the common Jay has been systematically 

 stated to be brown in young birds, but blue in adults ; whereas 

 the young birds have the iris blue, and the adults vinous brown. 

 The soft parts of Icterus jamacaii (the Brazilian Hang-nest) are 

 thus described: " Bill black, at the base plumbeous ; feet black"; 

 the iris not being noted. In life the bill is very dark slate- 

 coloured, the lower mandible with the basal half ashy whitish ; 

 the iris very pale amber (or transparent primrose) ; the eye 

 enclosed in an elongate subpyriform bluish-ashy naked patch ; 

 feet black. The soft parts of Acridotheres cristatellus are not 

 quite correctly described, for this Crested Mynah is said to have 

 the " bill pale yellow, with the base rose-coloured ; feet orange- 

 red ; iris orange-yellow"; whereas in life the bill is bone whitish, 

 pinkish at the base; feet ochre-yellow; iris orange. The soft 

 parts of the Passerine Dove have been variously described, and 

 it seems possible that there may be more than one species con- 

 founded under the name of Chamcspelia passerina. It is admitted 

 that local forms showing more or less vinous colouring in the 

 plumage exist, and if these differ markedly in the colouring of 

 the soft parts they should, in my opinion, bear different names. 

 Baird describes the northern form as having the bill and feet 

 yellow, the former tipped with brown ; Dresser says, " beak 

 purplish black, iris bright red, legs flesh-coloured " ; whereas the 



