THE BIRDS OF NORTHERN THAILAND 167 



Judged from the number of birds heard during the hot weather, the 

 koel is common and generally distributed in the northern districts, 

 but it is seldom seen and still more rarely collected. Eisenhofer sent 

 to Stockholm seven undated specimens from Khun Tan. Gyldenstolpe 

 took it at Ban Huai Horn, February 25 ; at Khun Tan, May 4; and at 

 Pang Hua Phong, May 8. I got an adult male at Ban Huai Muang, 

 December 20, and an adult female at Ban Mae Mo, August 25. 



From early March to the end of May the ringing ko-el', ho-eV of this 

 large cuckoo may be heard from tall pa daeng and the more open ever- 

 green throughout the lowlands, but with the close of the period of song 

 the bird virtually ceases to be recorded. 



The nok kawao enters into northern legend and perhaps for this 

 reason the species is prized as a cagebird in Chiang Mai and the 

 villages. 



An adult male had the irides brilliant red and the bill light olive- 

 green. Gyldenstolpe notes that two females had the irides red; the 

 bill greenish yellow ; the feet and toes blackish gray. 



The adult male is entirely black with a steel-blue gloss. The adult 

 female has the upperparts dull dark brown, more or less glossed with 

 greenish, the head, back, and wings spotted, the tail narrowly barred, 

 with white or buffy; the underparts white or buffy, spotted on the 

 throat and breast, barred elsewhere, with blackish brown. 



All northern specimens are best placed with the Chinese race, with 

 which they agree in wing length and size of bill and, in the case of 

 the adult females, in coloration. The most northern Thai example of 

 malayana I have examined is an adult male taken at Pak Nam Pho, 

 April 8, 1924, and recorded by Chasen and Boden Kloss in Journ. Siam 

 Soc. Nat. Hist. Suppl., 1928, pp. 168-169 (all other specimens there 

 listed are, in my opinion, chinensis). 



KHOPODYTES TRISTIS LONGICAUDATUS (Blyth) 



Tenasserimese Large Green-billed Malkoha 



Phaenicophaens longicaudatus Blyth, Journ. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, vol. 10, 1841 

 [ = 1842], p. 923 (Tenasserim; type specimen "procured in the vicinity of 

 Maulmain," fide Blyth, ibid., p. 917). 



Rhopodytes tristis hainanus [partim], Gyldenstolpe, Journ. Nat. Hist. Soc. Siam, 

 1915, p. 233 (listed) ; Kungl. Svenska Vet.-Akad. Handl., 1916, p. 104 (Khun 

 Tan, Doi Pha Sakaeng). 



Rhopodytes tristis longicaudatus [partim], Gyldenstolpe, Ibis, 1920, p. 595 

 ("Throughout the whole country").— Riley, U. S. Nat. Mus. Bull. 172, 1938, 

 p. 135 (Doi Langka). 



Rhopodytes tristis longicaudatus, de Schauensee, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadel- 

 phia, 1929, p. 570 (Doi Suthep, Chiang Mai) ; 1934, p. 258 (Chiang Mai, Chiang 

 Dao). — Deignan, Journ. Siam Soc. Nat. Hist. Suppl., 1931, p. 160 (Doi 

 Suthep, Chiang Mai). — Chasen and Boden Kloss, Journ. Siam Soc. Nat. 

 Hist. Suppl., 1932, p. 235 (Doi Suthep).— Deignan, Journ. Siam Soc. Nat. 

 Hist. Suppl., 1930, p. 89 (Doi Suthep, Chiang Mai). 



