THE VIOLET CUCKOO. 
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barred with white and greenish purple ; outer tail-feathers with large white 
spots on both webs. 
In the adult female the whole lower surface^ from the chin to the tip of 
the under tail-coverts, the lores_, cheeks,, ear-coverts and sides of neck are 
white, closely barred across with greenish bronze ; the bars on the under 
tail- coverts are broader and wider apart than elsewhere ; the head, neck, 
back, rump and upper tail-coverts are shining bronze, tinged with copper on 
the head ; the forehead and feathers over the eye are speckled with white; 
the lesser wing-coverts are brilliant bronze, each feather narrowly edged with 
rufous ; the greater coverts are less brilliant, and are broadly notched all 
round with rufous ; primaries brown glossed with green, very narrowly 
edged with rufous, and the later ones also tipped with the same ; the inner 
web of all with a broad streak of rufous along the basal two thirds of the 
edge ; secondaries and tertiaries greenish bronze, edged all round with 
rufous ; centre pair of rectrices uniform bronze-green, tinged with blue 
near the tip ; the next pair has on each web alternate triangular patches 
of greenish brown and rufous, the bases of the brown patches and the 
apices of the rufous ones lying next the shaft ; in the next pair the brown 
patches are less in extent, each pair being fully separated from the next by 
the rufous and the tip is white ; the next pair again is very similar, the 
brown being still further reduced and the white tip broader the outer 
pair is rufous, with four black bars, and on the outer web between each 
pair of black bars there is a white patch and the tip is broadly white. 
In less mature females the central rectrices are barred greenish brown 
and rufous; the white spots on the outer pair extend to both webs; the 
upper plumage everywhere is closely barred with rufous ; the lower plumage 
at all ages is the same. 
Immature males have from a very early age one or more violet feathers 
showing out in the plumage, and their recognition is consequently easy. 
The change goes on by an easy transition, and not by a moult. In October 
the change appears to have just begun, and by February the full plumage 
is assumed. The young male never assumes the adult plumage of the 
female, the change to mature male plumage taking place while the upper 
surface is densely barred with rufous. The young male differs in nothing 
from the young female, except that the green bars below are much broader 
and further apart. 
In the nestling the head and neck are rufous streaked with black ; the 
remainder of the upper plumage, wings and tail brown ; the secondaries^ 
tertiaries and the four central tail-feathers with rufous spots on the 
marginal halves of the webs ; the other tail-feathers, the wing-coverts, 
scapulars, back, rump and upper tail-coverts barred with rufous ; lower 
plumage pale fulvous, barred with dull brown. 
Male : bill orange-yellow ; iris red ; eyelids green, the edges red j 
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