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Minivets. 
Pigeons, the Bee-e;iters, and the Barbets ; golden yellow by the 
Orioles, the loras, and one of the Grosbeaks; blues by the King- 
fishers, the Roller, the purple Porphyrio, and some Flycatchers ; 
metallic hues by the Sunbirds, the Pheasants and the Peafowl. 
The Minivets sport the reds and the yellows. The cocks of the 
various species of Pericrocotus display red. each his own especial 
shade of that colour. Bright scarlet is most in favour, but two 
species wear crimson, others exhibit deep rose colour, flaming 
red and orange red respectively. The hens are similarly a study 
in the various hues of yellow. 
But I am not going to write a monograph on these airy- 
fair}' little birds. I propose to deal with one species — The 
Orange MinivET {Pericrocotus JJaitwieiis) — of which one of our 
members, Mr. O. Millsum, is the fortunate possessor of a speci- 
men. This species is found in the beautifully wooded Nilgiri 
Hills and in the luxuriant forests that clothe the hills of Travan- 
core. I made the acquaintance of this species some five years 
ago when spending a month's leave at Coonoor, near Oolaca- 
mund. 
The Orange Minivet is a bird about the size of a Sparrow, 
but much more elegantly proportioned and with a considerably 
longer tail. The head and back of the cock are black. The 
wings are black and flame-coloured red, the red being so arranged 
as to form a band along the wing during flight. The tail feathers 
are all red save the two median ones which are black. During 
flight the brilliant red seems to crowd out ihe black, so that a 
number of cocks as they flit about amid the foliage look, as 
Major Roden says, like .sparks driven before the wind. In the 
hen the flaming red colour is replaced by bright yellow. It is 
thus evident that "orange" is not the correct adjective to apply 
to this bird. I think that a literal translation of its Latin name 
— the Flame-Coloured Minivet — would be more appropriate. 
The cocks and hens seem to vie with one another as to 
which shall look the most brilliant ; so that in this species, at 
any rate, the sexual dimorphism cannot have any connection 
with the supposed necessity to the hen of a greater degree of 
protective colouration. In the Minivets red seems to be a mascu- 
line attribute and yellow a feminine one. As Mr. Finn and I 
