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Show 818 THE MARQUIS OF TWEEDDALE ON [Dec. 4, region the same, with an ochreous tint. Upper back and interscapulars dark green. First primary dark brown, very narrowly margined with green on outer web ; remaining primaries brown, with the whole of the outer web green, and, towards the ends, some of the inner webs. Secondaries, and tertiaries above, green. All the wing-coverts green, narrowly margined with yellow. Quills underneath brown. Under wing-coverts green and yellowish green. Rectrices above green, like quills; below pale golden brown. Middle and lower back and uropygium deep torquoise-blue, not sky-blue. Upper tail-coverts green. Bill in dried skin white. Wing 7 inches, tail 5, tarsus 0*75, bill from gape 1*00. [Butuan, 2 J May. Iris orange.] Only one example is sent by Mr. Everett; but while very close to T. albirostris, Wallace, of Celebes, it can be readily distinguished by the deep tone of the blue of the back and its smaller dimensions. An example from the Philippine island of Samar, obtained by Cuming, is in the British Museum, and is alluded to by Dr. O. Finsch (Pap. ii. p. 360) as being possibly T. muelleri of Celebes. Mr. Sharpe, who has compared T. everetti with Cuming's Samar example, writes:-" T. everetti certainly seems to m e to be exactly the same species as the bird marked T. sumatranus by Gray. It has the same blue edgings to the interscapular feathers. Our bird has one side of the upper breast blue-edged, which yours has not." Mr. Sharpe adds that the British-Museum skin has the bill coral-red ; so that probably this Philippine species, which is a representative form of T. muelleri, has either a red or a white bill, like the Celebesian species (conf. Walden, Tr. Z. S. viii. p. 31). The blue edgings on the upper breast of the Samar bird do not occur in T. muelleri. 5. CYCLOPSITTA LUNULATA (4). [Butuan, d, May. Iris dark brown; bill black, the base maxilla light grey ; feet greenish.] Seven examples from Surigao and three from Butuan are sent by Mr. Everett, and they cannot be specifically separated from Luzon individuals. Only one is marked §, and it has a lunated collar and crescentic markings on the lower back; some of the necklace-plumes blue on their under surface. Five examples are of adults (marked c? ) with blue collars, the lower back bright yellow-green and no crescentic markings. Four (marked d ) are immature birds, with mixed blue and lunulated collars, and with traces, more or less, of crescentic markings on the lower back. These last examples establish the identity of C. lunulata and C. loxias; but tbe question whether the lunulata plumage belongs to adult females as well as to immature males still remains open. Some of the collar-plumes of the only female in the collection being blue underneath perhaps indicates a state of transition to the loxias dress. None of the adult males have the whole face, lores, and ophthalmic region blue, as is the case jn two Luzon individuals killed in January. |