KUNGL. SV. VET. AKADEMIENS HANDLINGAR. BAND 52. N:0 |7. id I 
Fam. Alcedinidee. 
Halcyon pyrrhopygius GouLp. 
Math. handl. n:r 390. 3 ad. Derby, Kimb. !7/10 1910; 2 SS juv. Meda, ibid. "/5, moult. in wing and 
tail, ?2/5 1911, tail in moult.; SJ juv., FS ad. Nooncanbah, Fitzroy r. !8/;, !3/; 1911, moult. in wing, tail and 
crown of the head; J ad., 9 ad. Beagle bay, Dampier 1. ?/17, "/7 1911. 
Juvenals. — Three young males !/1, "/s, ””/s. The specimen '”/1 is a rather freshly 
full-feathered juvenal, without pins (the feathers are grown out). The others, the 
two specimens of May, are about to change the wing- and tail-feathers, especially 
the tail-feathers. Otherwise they are not moulting and not like the former. 
Plumage: 1) The male juvenal "hh. It is in juvenal-plumage (typical). On the 
upper part more dark-coloured than the adults. The feathers at the front of the 
crown of the head have brownish edges and faint greenish centres, and at the back 
of it green feathers with white edges. Below the white band of the back there is a 
bigger blackish part going downwards. The feathers on the breast are edged with 
strong brownish black, forming a watered girdle on the breast, evidently bounded 
towards the throat but down the belly running into the white feathers of the belly. 
The throat white, the side-parts watered in brownish black, and the white band of 
the back as well to some extent. The wing blue, the bigger and smaller wing-coverts 
bordered with ligth brown. The length of the bill 3,8 cm. 
2) The male juvenal "Is. The crown of the head is quite bluish-green, except 
for the narrow white edges of the feathers. The back has considerably more blue 
below the band than in the former. The breast has lost the dark girdle in the middle; 
it remains only in the sides, in the form of brownish black edges to the feathers. 
The wing is quite without brown watering. The wing 9,9 cm. "The bill 3,8 cm. 
3) The male juvenal ””/s. Like the former, but has lighter white-edged feathers 
in the crown of the head, in the back a rusty-coloured admixture. The bill 4,1 cm. 
consequently longer than in the former. The same length of the wing. 
Variants. — (Though the length of the wing is the same, the two juvenals 
from May have a rather different length of bill.) 
Specimen no. 1 from "”/10 is very different from the others. It has in general an 
extraordinarily strong rusty colour in the plumage in the upper, but especially in the 
lower part, which is strong rusty-brown all over, chiefly on the breast, but also on 
the throat. The specimen seems to be a very old male. The bill is considerably stronger, 
particularly at the point, than in the other specimens, and very much blunted, but 
it is not shorter than that of specimen no. 6, also an old male. The length of the 
tail varies. In specimen no. 6 it is 8,6 cm., while on an average itis only 6,8 em. (cat. 
of birds). Even the male juvenal no. 4 has the tail 7,6 cm. long. 
Specimen no. 7 is a very much discoloured bird, thus the blue colour, especially 
on the crown of the head and the back, has evidently undergone bleaching and is 
of a dirty-brownish colour. 
