2098 THE SMEW. 
THE PLATE is, on the whole, good, but the female figured is 
immature. In the really old female the entire loral region is 
blackish brown, and in no female is the head quite so red as 
in the plate; it should be browner. In the old female too the 
base of the neck all round and back are greyer, and the latter 
more uniform, the paler margins to the feathers being nearly 
obsolete. Some males show rather more white on the wing and 
scapulars than the specimen figured, and the vermiculated 
feathers shown at the side of the rump belong to the flanks, 
and would hardly, in the live bird, show up in the position in 
which they are shown, though they did so, being slightly dis- 
placed, in the skin from which the drawing was made. 
In India we get many most interesting and beautiful speci- 
mens of young males changing from the female to the adult 
male garb. Dresser’s supposed old female from Moscow is 
clearly one of these. 
No OTHER species of this genus, whichis a purely Palzearctic 
one, (whether one stragegler has or has not occurred in America,) 
is at present known to exist. 
