Birds of Celebes: Psittacidae. 
143 
These three species form a group, which stands nearer to T. luconensis (L.) of 
the Philippines than to the other members of the genus. T. luconensis differs 
chiefly by having the head above blue when adult. At first sight it appears as 
if a certain interest attaches to the fact that now and then young birds of 
T. muelleri show traces of a blue head; we have found this in a specimen from 
Sangi, in one from East Celebes, in one from Banggai. It may be a hint that 
the blue-headed form represents an earlier stage in the development of T. muelleri. 
But the young of the blue-headed T. luconensis has the head green and the bill 
red like the adult; it therefore seems to suggest that a form like T. muelleri was 
an early stage in the development of T. luconensis! It is just possible that two 
stages in the phylogenetic history of the race is betrayed by the young of the 
two species, but it seems quite unsafe as yet even to attempt to interpret the 
meaning of the facts. 
The question of the significance of the red or white bill in this species — 
points which have led to its being split into two — must, we think, undoubtedly 
be answered according to the conclusion of Prof. W. Blasius — a conclusion 
at which indeed we had independently arrived from over 60 specimens examined 
— that the white-billed individuals are females or young males, the red- 
billed individuals are old males Occasionally females, as Briiggemann 
says, acquire a reddish bill (c 2). In 1871, in order to solve the question whether 
the white- and red-billed Parrots were one and the same species or different 
ones, Meyer procured a very large series of specimens and came to the con- 
clusion that the bill of the young bird is white, and gradually assumes a red 
colour as the bird grows older, and deep red with age; but it was not then 
known — as, indeed, it seems to have escaped ornithologists generally up to 
the present — that the female closely resembles the young. Dr. Hickson 
arrived at a somewhat different conclusion: “My boys and I shot a great many 
of these birds, partly to settle this vexed question and partly for food, and I 
found without exception that those with scarlet bills were males and those with 
Avhite bills were females” (d 16). We do not know whether Dr. Hickson was 
aware that the young male is like the female in coloration, but his observations 
taken together with those of Meyer and others of Dr. Platen made on the 
spot (h 2), and of the Drs. Sarasin, and with the fact that in Zoological Gardens 
two or more cases are known of examples, which arrived with a white bill, but 
acquired a red bill subsequently (see Finsch ^3, W. Blasius d 14., Salvadori 
d 17), all serve to prove that females and young males have white bills (some- 
times reddish), and old males red bills ^). 
Little is known of the habits of this Parrot. A living one, which was in 
A sei’ies of 37 specimens, collected in Aug.-Sept. 1892 for tlie Dresden Museum (though not sexed) 
vary as follows: 5 with the yellow-green scapulars and mantle of old males have the hill very deep' crimson; 
2 or 3 others with the yellow-green colour less strongly developed (younger males) have the bill red ; 2 others, 
getting yellowish green on the shoulders, have the bill white (immature males) ; the remainder have generally 
a parrot-green back and white bill (females and young males). 
