64 
F. ¥hm — Plumage of Honeysucker, 
[No. 1. 
Note on the Seasonal change of Plumnge in tfie males of the Purple 
Honet/mcker ( Arachnechthra ftRifttica) and nf an anahqom Americmi 
bird (Coereba cjanea). — By F. Finn, B,A,, F.Z.S., Deputy Sujpef' 
intmdenti Indian Museum. 
tBeceifed and Read Janttaty 4th, IS9S.] 
Dr. JerdoTi in hia "BMb of India" (Vol T, p. *^70) and Captain 
Shelley, in his Monograph of the Ginnyridae^ agi'eo in assigning to the 
male of our common Pnrple Honey sucker { AvaGhneotJim asiatica) besides 
its churacteristic dreas, a pliimag'e rnnch rffseTmbling- tliat of the female^ 
but mai'ked with a broad purple E5treak down the ventral surface. 
Dr H. Gadow, however, in the British Mnseum Catnlog^e volume 
(IX, p. 58), dealin^f with these birds, ignores this chan^/e of plumage ; 
and Mr. Oates, in his "Birds of British Burmah" {VoL I» p, iJ22), 
states that the change does not take place in that country, " for f all- 
plamoged males may be obtained all the year round," He believes also 
that the young males of this species ai-e clothed in female plumage all 
through their first winter, and thinks that the abundance of such has 
probably given nse to the belief in a change qf plumage. 
With all dine deference to the opinion of so escelleiifc an ernithologist 
as Mr. Oates, however, I venture to suggest that he is wrong, and that 
the authors previously cited are right, with respect to this change of 
plumnge, at any rate in Itidian examples. 
In the firsfc place, the presence of f ull-plumaged birds all the year 
round is of very little weight in disproving this change. Marked in- 
diividual variations occur in the period of change of plumage by bii'da 
which possess moi-e than one dress, and Bpeeiraons of such species may 
bo found in more or less full-pluniago and undress at the same date, 
as I have myself seen in Ducks and Dabchicks. 
This consideration disposes, I think, of Mr. Oates' first argument, 
but I have better evidence to bring forward, 
Aboat the middle of July last year (1897) in view of my approaching 
visit to England on leave, I procured a number of Honeysuckers in 
the hope of being able to take some alive to the London Zoological 
Gardens, where such birds have never previously been exhibited. All 
the birds I kept, with one exception, were Araclmecihra zeylonicat but 
I had, and brought home safely, one male specimen of the species I am 
now considering. 
This bird, when I got it, was in heavy moult, and mostly purple 
in colour, but to my great surprise (I liad taken it for a young male 
assuming fall-plumagej it gradually lost this hue, and by the time I 
