tweh e cire d 6 sig’nat 0 d as females and only two as males. I further adduced in favour of my discovery that, 
taking my six green males and nine red females (from Mafoor) by themselves, it could be mathematically 
demonstrated that the probability of a really existing sexual difference is as 32700 : 1. 
“ In my third note (Proc. Zool. Soc. of London, 1877, p. 800, pi. 79) I figured the tail of a specimen in 
the Dresden Museum, which is half red, half green, and drew attention to some young individuals in several 
Museums, which are partly green, partly red, proving that the young male is coloured like the female, 
whereas the well-known savant, Dr. Beccari, wrote that the young ones offer the same differences as the 
adult birds (Ann. Mus. Civ. Gen. vii. p. 715). 
“In my fourth note on the same subject (Orn. Centralblatt, 1878, p. 119) I chiefly showed that Dr. Brehm, 
w ho is of opinion (Illustrirtes Thierleben, 2nd ed. vol. iv. p. 68) that the existence of green females and oL 
red males has heen proved, w'as misled by inaccurate statements, and I further drew attention to other 
facts, w'hlch confirm the statement that the young ones of both sexes are red. 
“Now, after the lapse of more tlian four years, I do not hesitate to state that almost every ornitholo- 
gist admits the fact of the sexual differences in Eclectus, and that all objections and doubts which came from 
the most different quarters are silenced. The only thing at which 1 am surprised is, that this sexual 
difference could have been so long overlooked, red and green Eclecti having even been several times placed 
in two different genera. On my last visit to London (August of this year), I saw' in the bird-galleries of 
the British Museum a specimen (which has already been a very long time there) labelled asAJ. westermanni, 
but which is nothing else than a young male of E, polychlorus changing from Its red dress into its green one, 
and which has not yet acquired the red spots on the breast ; but it is covered all over its back with red 
spots, the residue of the first dress ; the bill, too, proves it to be a young bird. I only ask. How can the 
existence of such a specimen (green, with red spots) be understood, if not as the result of a sexual difference? 
“Apropos of E. westermanni, I am still of the opinion which I expressed in 1874, that this is not a good 
species, but that the specimens know'ii are only individuals which have not acquired their full plumage, in 
consequence of the unnatural conditions incident to a state of captivity. All the specimens hitherto known, 
of which I have seen those at Copenhagen, at Bremen, in the British Museum, and at Leiden, are those 
of birds that lived in captivity. The same remark perhaps applies to E. corneliee, which is rarer than 
E. westermanni'. up to the present time only a few’^ specimens are knowm. I saw one In Amsterdam and 
one in London ; the latter is labelled as a male — a proof that not only In the tropics can a mistake be made 
in the determination of a bird’s sex. It is not rare that a bird does not acquire its full plumage in 
captivity; for instance, my friend Hr. von Pelzeln, of Vienna, in the year 1862, published the fact that an 
Aquila imperialis in the Schonbrunn Zoological Gardens retained its immature plumage during seven years. 
“ I do not share the opinion of Mr. Ramsay, of Sydney (Ibis, 1878, p. 379), ‘ that the young retain the 
red and blue state of plumage for a considerable time, after which the inales assume the green plumage, 
but think that the change of plumage takes place in Eclectus as quickly as it does In other species of birds. 
All the red specimens which are young males prove this to be the case by their bills ; a young red male 
never has such a pronounced bill as an adult female. Even the changing specimens which we know 
(partly red, partly green), still evidently prove themselves by their bills to be young ones. 
“ Recently Mr. Van Musschenbroek, the well-known Dutch resident at Ternate and Manado, told me that 
a red can now be found in a very isolated locality of the Minahassa, in North Celebes; but he 
could not tell me which species it is ; he meant that they are probably descendants of individuals escaped 
from captivity. If this is true, a green Eclectus also will be found there, besides Eclectus mulleri, which is 
a know'll inhabitant of those regions and is characteristic of Celebes. Another instance of a new immi- 
grating Eclectus in Celebes (although from other reasons) I brought to light in the case of Eclectus 
megalorhynchus (see Row'ley’s Orn. Misc. iii., and elsewhere). 
“ These tw'o last-named species and others not presenting the remarkable sexual differences presented by 
Eclectus polychlorus and its allies, I venture to question whether they should not be separated generically.” 
The Plate is intended to represent a fully adult male of E. polychlorus, of the natural size. The reduced 
figures flying in the background illustrate the difference betw'een the two sexes. 
