THE BIRDS OF NORTHERN THAILAND 489 



ORTHOTOMUS ATROGULARIS NITIDUS Hume 



Indo-Chinese Black-throated Tailorbird 



Orthotomus nitidus Hume, Stray Feathers, vol. 2, 1874, pp. 507-508 (Tenasserim). 



Orthotomus atrigularis, Gyldenstolpe, Kungl. Svenska Vet.-Akad. HandL, 1913, 

 p. 29 (Den Chai). 



Orthotomus atrigularis nitidus, de Schauensee, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadel- 

 phia, 1929, p. 554 (Chiang Rai). 



Orthotomus atrogularis nitidus, Riley, U. S. Nat. Mus. Bull. 172, 1938, p. 424 

 (Chiang Dao, Muang Pai). 



The black-throated tailorbird is restricted in range to the districts 

 of lowland evergreen, with the result that, while it is known from all 

 our provinces, it is of necessarily local distribution. 



This form, unlike its congener, avoids proximity to man and his 

 cultivation, preferring, overgrown abandoned clearings, the thickets 

 beside jungle roads, or even the uncut forest. Its habits seem to 

 differ in no important particular from those of 0. s. inexpectatus, a 

 fact that may well explain its withdrawal into the one type of en- 

 vironment not yet occupied by its more aggressive relative. 



A male taken along the Chiang Mai-Chiang Dao road, about 9 km. 

 south of the latter town, August 17, 1935, had the gonads enlarged. 



The same specimen had the irides tan ; the maxilla horny brown ; the 

 mandible horny flesh; the feet and toes flesh; the claws light horny 

 brown. 



The adult male has the lores, superciliary region, forehead, crown, 

 and nape bright orange-rufous; the remaining upperparts bright 

 olive-green; the feathers of chin and throat ashy with slaty-black 

 bases, the dark portion increasing in extent on the lower throat so 

 as to form a conspicuous, irregular patch of ashy-streaked black; 

 the remaining underparts buffy white, with gray bases of the feathers 

 showing through irregularly to give a broadly streaked appearance, 

 the flanks strongly washed with olive-yellow; the thighs bright ru- 

 fous, suffused with yellow ; the under tail coverts, under wing coverts, 

 and axillaries yellow. The adult female closely resembles the long- 

 tailed tailorbird but may always be known by the yellow-washed 

 flanks, the yellowish-rufous thighs, and the yellow under tail coverts, 

 under wing coverts, and axillaries. 



ORTHOTOMUS CUCULLATUS CORONATUS Blyth 



Himalayan Yellow-bellied Tailorbird 



Orthotomus coronatus "Jerd. & Blyth" Blyth, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1861, p. 200 

 (Sikkim; type specimen from Darjiling, fide Bowdler Sharpe, Catalogue of 

 the birds in the British Museum, vol. 7, 1883, p. 230). 



Phyllergates coronatus coronatus, Deiqnan, Journ. Siam Soc. Nat. Hist. Suppl., 

 1935, p. 65 (Doi Ang Ka, Doi Chiang Dao). 



