OCR Text |
Show 820 THE MARQUIS OF TWEEDDALE ON [Dec. 4, plume to the fully developed plastron, it might be considered that two species were represented in the series. Three examples, marked d, with the crown obscure reddish green, have the face, chin, throat, and supercilium pale faded green, and not blue ; these possess no indications of the red pectoral patch. Three other examples ( d), coloured above almost as brightly as an adult, have the lores, supercilium, cheeks, and chin blue, as in the female ; but they betray their sex by a few scattered red plumes on the throat and breast. Were it not for these isolated plumes, the sex would be undeterminable by the plumage alone. In one of these three examples the blue chin-and face-feathers are passing over to bright green ; and this example exhibits the greatest number of scattered red pectoral and gular plumes. In six other examples ( d ), with the pectoral plastron fully developed or almost so, there is no blue about the chin and face. If the six examples described above (marked by Mr. Everett as being of females) are in perfect plumage (and their upper plumage is not to be distinguished from that of undoubtedly adult males), the sexes in this species, when adult, have each a peculiar plumage. It was from either an adult female or else a young male with a blue face and chin, and before any red pectoral plumes had appeared, - that Dr. O. Finsch described L. hartlaubi. Souance-'s description of his L. bonapartei (R. etM. Zool. 1856, p. 222), a bird said to be a native of the Sooloo Islands, agrees in all respects with L. hartlaubi d adult, the colour of the bill excepted, which is stated to be black. The adult male of L. indicus is difficult to distinguish from L. hartlaubi 2 vel c? j u v - But in the Ceylon bird the cherry-red of the head does not descend so low on the occiput, and the nape is not so intensely orange. The lower surface of L. indicus is pure light green and not yellow-green ; the upper tail-coverts do not cover so much of the rectrices. The blue on tbe inner webs of the quills and on the under surface of tbe rectrices is much lighter in shade. L. indicus is also somewhat larger, and has a shorter and more powerful bill. Souance's description of X. indicus, var. A, d (I. ci), partly taken from examples in the Massena collection, said to be from the Philippines, may have been from Mindanao individuals of L. hartlaubi $ vel d juv. But there is more reason now to infer that Souance's species, 174 B (L. apicalis), said positively to be from Mindanao, was described from examples of either females or young males of L. hartlaubi. Souance's remarks were comparative as between Ceylon and so-called Mindanao specimens, in which case the principal differentiating character of L. apicalis, and that which the title is meant to express, "l'extremite' des rectrices est coloree de bleu indigo," will hold good ; for while in L. indicus the apices of the rectrices in most examples are light yellow-green, in several of Mr. Everett's specimens of L. hartlaubi they are dark blue, that darker shade of blue of the under surface of the rectrices which it has in common with L. philippensis, L. chrysonotus, and L. regulus. Souance, moreover, was not sure that the apices of the rectrices in L. indicus contrasted with the general colour. By this view of the question Dr. Finsch's difficulty |