PALiEORNIS EUPATRIUS. 
169 
to the eye • occiput and cheeks pervaded with a greyish-blue tinge ; a broad black mandibular stripe passing down 
and across the side of the neck, where it meets a rose collar which encircles the hind neck ; on the secondary 
wing-coverts a dark red patch; 1st primary and inner webs of remaining quills dark brown, the former with a 
5 and fine yellow edge ; bases of secondaries washed with blue j central tail-feathers passing from the base into 
blue and thence into yellowish at the tips; under surface of tail yellowish; beneath dingy or faded green, 
brightening on the lower flanks and sides of the abdomen; under wing and under tail-coverts pale green. 
Female. Total length 17 to 18 inches ; wing 7-5 to 7-8 ; tail 9-0 to 10-0 ; greatest depth of upper mandible 0- 7 . 
Iris dingy yellowish white, with darkish inner circle ; bill, legs, and feet as m male. 
The female wants the black mandibular stripe and rose collar. 
Immature male. Similar to the female in plumage, but generally larger, attaining a total length of^utl9 inches 
in the first year. In some the rose collar is present in an imperfect state ; but these are probably birds of the 
second year. The iris is greenish white generally. 
Obs The Ceylonese race of this Parrakeet is, like many other representatives of Indian species inhabiting Ceylon, 
smaller than the continental ; for although very large examples of males are sometimes met with, this sex is, as a 
rule, shorter in the wing and tail, and possesses a smaller bill than most members of it from India, white a stall 
greater disparity exists between individuals of the other sex from the two localities. Three adult males froi 
peninsular India and the N.W. Provinces in the national collection measure m the wing 8'3, 9-2, and A- inches, 
and the tail in the second attains as much as 13 A, with the bill 0-85 in height at the cere ; the mandibular stripe 
in some Indian individuals is very broad. Mr. Ball gives the wing-measurements of 2 males from Chota Nagpur 
as 8-65 and 8-5, and those of the tail 11-6 and 12-0 ; the corresponding dimensions of two females from the same 
district are 8-2, 8 - 35, and 12-2, 12'0. In the north and north-west of India a race exists with a glaucous blue 
tinge on the head, and likewise larger than the Ceylonese, which Mr. Hume considers deserving of subspecific 
rank under the title of Pal. dvalends of Hutton. In Burmah and the Andaman Islands another is characterized 
S 2“r P »b.bl,f«»«le», J et the, to. been compared w.th - *• — 
Ceylon. 
Distribution.-^ fine Parrakeet is a common and widely diffused species in Ceylon. It appears to be 
as much entitled to the name of Alexandrine Parrakeet, in memory of the great Emperor whose voyage 
brought it from the East, as the Indian bird ; for it would be difficult to assign the true locality whe c 
was first procured in those days of yore. The old writer Willughby, in his ' Ornithology, published m 1678 
remarks of this species, which he calls the ‘ f Ring Parrakeet of the ancients This was the first of all t 
Parrots brought out of India into Europe, and the only one known to the ancients for a long time to wit, 
from the time of Alexander the Great to the age of Nero, by whose searchers (as Pliny witnesseth) Parrots 
were discovered elsewhere, viz. in Gagandi, an island of Ethiopia.” Edwards says that his plate was taken 
from a specimen brought alive to London in one of the East-India Company s ships. 
To return, however, to its distribution in Ceylon, it is found throughout the north of Ceylon, from 
Chilaw upwards, more particularly along the seaboard round to Batticaloa, where it is very abundant indeed. 
In some portions of this long line of coast its presence is notably wanting , for instance, at lincoma le 1 is 
rarely seen, although 15 miles to the north of it and on the south of the Bay it is common.^ In t e jun & es 
of the interior it is locally distributed. In the south-east I found it tolerably plentiful in the Aft e an a\ 
Korale, from which locality it ascends in the dry season to the Haputale ranges. In the scrubby maritime 
district of Hambantota it is replaced by the next species. It occurs here and there in small numbeis 
throughout the southern and western Provinces, and in the Kandyan district is not unfrequently met with in 
the dry season ; and in Madulsima I have seen it as high as 3500 feet. Mr. Bligh has observed it on one 
occasion at Nuwara Elliya. It is tolerably numerous along the base of the Matale ranges from Dambulla to 
thePeninsula of India it is found, according to Jerdon, in the forests of Malabar, in the hilly region 
of Central Indian, and in the northern Circars, and occasionally in parts of the Carnatic; m the extreme 
