MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 389 



at all seasons as similar, entirely ignoring the observations of earlier writers 

 many of whom show that some males at least are attired in a modified nuptial 

 garb. Blanford, in " The Fauna of British India"— Birds., Vol. IV, p. 200, begins : 

 " Coloration. Female (and, according to some, male in winter plumage)", 

 evidently holding an opinion different from that expressed by Oates, He 

 then describes the male in breeding plumage, and remarks later : " The 

 black plumage of the male is acquired by a moult, and is retained partly or 

 wholly by some birds in the winter ; but in others, probably younger, it 

 appears to be replaced by the ordinary garb of the female" and quotes Blyth 

 as having witnessed this latter change in birds kept in confinement. Hume and 

 Marshall in " The Game Birds of India, Burmah and Ceylon, " Vol. 1, pp. 24 

 and 25, say : " Young males, up to the beginning of March, entirely resemble 

 the females, but the moult then commencing gradually assimilates them to the 

 adults, which never lose, . . . the striking black and white garb that 



. . . is proper to the male sex." Later on this remark appears to me 

 to be contradicted by the following : — " Two young but full grown, or nearly 

 full grown, males before me, shot in January, have the black bodies and white 

 wings of the adult, but the heads and necks are like those of the females." 



I have just had an opportunity of examining a pair of these birds shot in 

 the Kheri District, Oudh, on January 31st, 1905. The female needs no 

 remarks, but the male, very dissimilar in its livery, nearly agrees with the two 

 males just quoted from Hume and Marshall. I made the following obser- 

 vations. $ Length 27£", wing 13^", tarsus 5f." 



Plumage, except the wing and under parts, as in the female. The 1st quill 

 is blackish brown with whitish fulvous mottling in bars on the inner web. 

 The 2nd quill deep black at tip and on the outer web, pure white on inner 

 web. 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th quills pure white tipped black. The 7th and 8th 

 quills blackish-brown beautifully marbled in whitish bars. The 9th and 10th 

 quills pure white with black tips. All shafts black throughout. 



The secondaries are pure white except the basal f — fth of the shafts which are 

 black, and the inner webs which are progressively increasingly black from with- 

 out inwards from their bases, the whole web being black in the innermost three. 



The upper coverts are white mottled fulvous, the 7th and 8th greater coverts 

 coloured like the corresponding quills. The lower plumage, including that 

 on the thighs, is black up to the lower part of the breast, except the greater 

 primary coverts which are pure white basally. The measurements of the 

 female are — Length 29£", wing 14", tarsus 6". 



F. WALL, C.M.Z.S., 



Fyzabad, February 5th, 1905. Captain, I.M.S. 



No. XXIV.— NOTES ON SOME BANGALORE SNAKES. 



A two months' holiday in Bangalore during August and September, 1904, fur- 

 nished me with the following notes on some species common in that locality : — 



Tropidonotus piscator. — The Canarese name for this species is neer havu 

 which equals " water-snake. " I witnessed one instance of the extreme 



