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The Goiildian Finch. 175
The female is very different, altogether duller; the edging of the crown
and gorget pale green; the carmine, when present, represented by a much
restricted patch ; the neck, back and upper wing-coverts much more olive in tint ;
the lower back and upper tail-coverts pale emerald green, scarcely paler at the
tips of the feathers, the central tail feathers much shorter; the breast band rosy
lilac, the hind chest and abdomen pale yellow excepting at the sides and fading
into white on the vent. Length about 43- inches. Beak less pure in colour.
There is not the slightest doubt that the typical female has been described
as the young" plumage of this bird, whilst two males have been described as sexes.
Thus the zeal of bird-lovers has cleared up a rather important point.
The example figured by Gould as the male of his Amadina gouldim is unquestionably
a female of the black-headed form ; the colouring and the short tail
at once indicate this. Mr. E. P. Ramsay, many years ago, came to the conclusion
that it was the female of P. mirabilis and in the Proceedings of the
Zoological Society for 1877 he writes :— " One female sent confirms the fact of
P. gouldice being the female of P. mirabilis. Mr. Armit found them breeding.
The male bird had, he states, the face carmine red."
That the Black and Red-faced forms pair and breed together in confinement
is clearly proved; but it is now also known that both sexes occur in both
varieties and the cause of the difference was, until recently, not satisfactorily
cleared up. On the one hand Mr. Arthur Thompson of the Loudon Zoological
Gardens (Sept 1893) informed me that a pair of black-faced Gouldians belonging
to the Societj^ had moulted into red-faced birds ; which seemed clearly to indicate
that the increase of the brilliance in plumage was a sign of advanced age ; then,
on the other hand Mr. Abrahams wrote to me :—" I have had hundreds upon
hundreds of these birds through my hands, in all stages of their growth, and in
the whole course of my experience I have never known a change of colour to
take place in the face, either from black to red, or vice versa. * My experience
has taught me that these birds assume either the red face or the black face at
the first moult, and I believe I can tell with certainty, when the birds are not
more than between two and three months old, whether they are going to turn
out black heads or red heads. I have painted specimens in various stages of
plumage, which I would be glad to show you."
Mr. Abrahams believes, however, that the two forms are varieties of one
species ; and Mrs. Praser, an ardent naturalist, informed me that the Gouldian
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* By this remark, Mr. Abrahams intended that he had never known a permanent change to take place; iiideecl
his next sentence partly explains this.