Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 6 (1902).djvu/299

Rh The colouring of the soft parts in birds can only be studied when the latter are either living or recently dead. The skins in collections give no idea of them, and stuffed specimens, based upon incorrect information, sometimes entirely misrepresent them. Here the aviculturist can greatly assist the cabinet naturalist or the taxidermist, if these men will accept his statements in good faith; and in this respect my late colleague, Dr. R. Bowdler Sharpe, showed a right scientific feeling, in that he was always glad of any facts I could give him respecting the colouring of the beaks, irides, naked face-patches, and feet of species in my possession.

To cite a few instances in which errors have occurred may perhaps be useful. The Spectacled Thrush (Trochalopterum canorum) is so called because the eye is enclosed in a lozenge-shaped ashy-grey naked patch; yet this very characteristic feature is omitted from descriptions taken from the dried skins. The colouring of the iris in the common Jay has been systematically stated to be brown in young birds, but blue in adults; whereas the young birds have the iris blue, and the adults vinous brown. The soft parts of Icterus jamacaii (the Brazilian Hang-nest) are thus described: "Bill black, at the base plumbeous; feet black"; the iris not being noted. In life the bill is very dark slate-coloured, the lower mandible with the basal half ashy whitish; the iris very pale amber (or transparent primrose); the eye enclosed in an elongate subpyriform bluish-ashy naked patch; feet black. The soft parts of Acridotheres cristatellus are not quite correctly described, for this Crested Mynah is said to have the "bill pale yellow, with the base rose-coloured; feet orange-red; iris orange-yellow"; whereas in life the bill is bone whitish, pinkish at the base; feet ochre-yellow; iris orange. The soft parts of the Passerine Dove have been variously described, and it seems possible that there may be more than one species confounded under the name of Chamæpelia passerina. It is admitted that local forms showing more or less vinous colouring in the plumage exist, and if these differ markedly in the colouring of the soft parts they should, in my opinion, bear different names. Baird describes the northern form as having the bill and feet yellow, the former tipped with brown; Dresser says, "beak purplish black, iris bright red, legs flesh-coloured"; whereas the