THE BIRDS OF NORTHERN THAILAND 461 



tion of the same simple impulse as induces other pairs or groups of 

 more or less sociable and noncompeting species to consort together 

 (e. g., Sitta f. corallina and Erpornis, etc.). The rather striking 

 similarity in color pattern exhibited by wood-shrike and flycatcher is 

 of greater interest than importance. 



Outside of the fact that the white-browed fantail is wholly 

 restricted in range to parklike, deciduous forest in the lowlands, a 

 description of its habits would apply equally well to the following 

 species. No greater contrast can be imagined than that between the 

 deliberate movements of the wood-shrike and the incessant dancing and 

 tail-flirting of the flycatcher. 



A nest of this bird (apparently completed but still without eggs) 

 was found by my collector at Ban San Pa Sak, February 25, 1937. It 

 was constructed on the upper surface of a small branch just at a 

 horizontal fork and stands a little more than two inches high, although 

 the cuplike depression has a depth of only one inch. It is woven almost 

 entirely of very fine grass stems and thinly faced everywhere on the 

 outside with cobwebs, some strands of which have been drawn down 

 one side of the supporting branch and up the other so as to anchor the 

 structure in a most efficient manner. 



A specimen from Nong Phung (along the Chiang Dao road, about 

 46 km. north of Chiang Mai), June 20, 1936, is in postnuptial molt. 



The adult in fresh plumage has the forehead and a broad supercilium 

 white ; the lores, sides of the head, the crown, and nape deep brownish 

 slate; the mantle brownish slate, strongly overlaid with ashy; the 

 remiges slaty brown, their upper coverts with small, indistinct whitish 

 tips; the central pair of rectrices wholly blackish brown, the next pair 

 likewise or narrowly tipped with white, the remaining pairs with an 

 outwardly increasingly broad white tip (the outermost pair with only 

 the basal half of the inner web not white) ; the feathers of the chin and 

 throat slaty gray, more or less broadly fringed with white ; the sides 

 of the breast and abdomen slaty gray; the remaining underparts (in- 

 cluding the sides of the neck behind the ear coverts) white. With 

 wear, the dark portions of the plumage become browner and the pale 

 tips of the upper wing coverts disappear. 



RHIPIDURA ALBICOLLIS ALBICOLLIS (VieUlot) 



Indian White-throated Fantail Flycatcher 



Platyrhynchos albicollis Vieillot, Nouveau dictionnaire d'histoire naturelle, nouv 



ed., vol. 27, 1818, p. 13 (Bengal). 

 Rhipidura albicollis, Gtldenstolpe, Kungl. Svenska Vet.-Akad. Handl., 1916, 



p. SO (Khun Tan); Ibis, 1920, p. 574 (Khun Tan).— Chasen and Boden 



Kloss, Journ. Siam Soc. Nat. Hist. Suppl., 1932, p. 240 (Doi Suthep). 

 Rhipidura albicollis celsa Riley, Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, vol. 42, 1929, p. 166 



(Khun Tan, North Thailand). 



