as males. I further adduced in favour of my discovery that,

a as females and only two
twelve are designated as females an j " ae :
8 and nine red females (from Mafoor) by themselves, it could be mathematically
c ss . QD
a really existing sexual difference is as 32700: 1.

taking my six green males
demonstrated that the probability of . ‘i i |
(Proc. Zool. Soc. of London, 1877, p. 800, pl. 79) I figured the tail of a specimen in

“In my third note ee ae o individ

the Dresden Museum, which is half red, half green, and drew attention to So young ind Ha uals 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. vil. p. 715).

“Ty my fourth note on the same subject (Orn. Centralblatt, 1878, p. 119) LU eanelly showed that Dr. Brehm,
who is of opinion (Illustrirtes Thierleben, 2nd ed. vol. iv. p. 68) that the existence of green females and of
red males has been proved, was misled by inaccurate statements, and I further drew attention to other
facts, which confirm the statement that the young ones of both ae are red.

“Now, after the lapse of more than four years, I do not hesitate w See that almost oom ornitholo-
gist admits the fact of the sexual differences in Eclectus, am that all objectiaug and doubts which ae from
the most different quarters are silenced. The only thing at which I am surprised is, that this sexual
difference could have been so long overlooked, red and green Lclecti 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 as Z. westermanni,
but which is nothing else than a young male of Z. 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 opimion which I expressed in 1874, that this is not a good

species, but that the specimens known 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 /. cornelie, which is rarer than
EE. westermanni: up to the present time only a few specimens are known. 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 stance, 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.

“TI 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 males assume the green plumage,
but think that the change of plumage takes place in Lelectus 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 Eclectus 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
If this is true, a green “clectus also will be found there, besides Eclectus mulleri, which is
a known inhabitant of those regions and js

from captivity.

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 Helectus
megalorhynchus (see Rowley’s Orn. Mise. iii., and elsewhere). |
“« These two last-named species and othe
Eclectus polychlorus and its allies,
The Plate is intended to re

figures flying in the back

rs not presenting the remarkable sexual differences presented by
I venture to question whether they should not be separated generically.”
present a fully adult male of Z. polychlorus, of the natural size. The reduced

ground illustrate the difference between the two sexes,