From Osbert Salvin [1868?]1
[Enclosure]
Richard B. Sharpe informs me that Carcineutes is the one form in the whole group in which the sexes differ conspicuously. In the ♂ the back, tail and crown of head are fine blue banded with black with much red about the head. In the female the whole upper surface ‘reddish-brown banded with black. Beneath white with black markings’.2 In the closely allied genus Dacelo the distinguishing mark is that in the male, the tail is blue with black bars, in the female brown with bluish-black bars, so that the tail differs in a strictly analogous manner as the whole plumage in the last genus.3
Curious modifications are also exhibited in the genus Ceryle. In some neotropical species the whole lower surface of the male is red, whilst in the female the breast is crossed by a blackish-grey band.4 In certain other species of the same section Chloroceryle the breast alone of the male is red whilst in the female no part is red, and the breast is crossed by an interrupted dark colored band, in some degree resembling the band in the first mentioned species.5 , i.e The presence or absence of a pectoral band is also the distinguishing mark of the sexes of the old world sections of the same genus (Ceryle).6 In fact the section Megaceryle of the old world is analogous to the section Streptoceryle of the New &. the section Ceryle of the Old World is also analogous to the section Chloroceryle of the new.7
CD annotations
Footnotes
Bibliography
Sharpe, Richard Bowdler. 1868–71. A monograph of the Alcedinidae: or, family of kingfishers. London: the author.
Wallace, Alfred Russel. 1868. A theory of birds’ nests: shewing the relation of certain sexual differences of colour in birds to their mode of nidification. Journal of Travel and Natural History 1 (1868–9): 73–89.
Summary
Notes on sexual differences within certain species of birds.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-5758
- From
- Osbert Salvin
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Brompton
- Source of text
- DAR 84.1: 172–3
- Physical description
- Amem 2pp † CD note
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 5758,” accessed on 29 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-5758.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 18 (Supplement)