THE BIRDS OF NORTHERN THAILAND 511 



uous forest which extends from the foot of Doi Suthep to about 2,700 

 feet. The extreme dates for its stay at Chiang Mai are October 21 

 (1930) and April 14 (1937) but on Doi Suthep it regularly appears 

 much earlier (about October 10) and probably leaves later; it is, how- 

 ever, almost certain that the racially inseparable populations of moun- 

 tain and plain have their origins in widely separated breeding 

 grounds. 



This familiar form avoids the open country inhabited by our 

 other pipits, haunting, in the lowlands, orchards and shaded gar- 

 dens, bamboo brakes and copses, on the hills, trails and park-like clear- 

 ings in the evergreen and forests of oak or pine. The flocks are sed- 

 entary and spend the entire cold weather within a very limited area : 

 a band of about twenty which appeared each winter in my compound 

 at Chiang Mai scarcely left the densely shaded ground beneath a large 

 tamarind except to seek shelter in its foliage at night or to escape 

 some passing danger. The members of the flock spend their time 

 walking about with bobbing tail in search of small seeds and insects 

 and, in the trees, have a habit of walking along the boughs. 



A female had the irides dark brown ; the maxilla horny black ; the 

 mandible fleshy, horny black at the tip ; the feet and toes fleshy ; the 

 soles livid white ; the claws fleshy horn. 



The tree pipit has the entire upperparts brownish olive-green, the 

 crown and mantle with black central streaks which are obsolescent 

 posteriorly and disappear on the rump ; the upper wing coverts black, 

 tipped with buff or buffy white to form two more or less conspicuous 

 bars ; the outermost pair of rectrices largely brownish white, the next 

 pair black with a small brownish-white tip, the succeeding three pairs 

 black, the shorter central pair colored like the mantle; the buff or 

 buffy- white supercilium edged above by a narrow black line ; the un- 

 derpays more or less rich buff, albescent on the lower breast and ab- 

 domen, boldly streaked with black at the sides of the throat, on the 

 breast and upper abdomen, and along the flanks. 



I am in complete agreement with Whistler and Kinnear (Journ. 

 Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc, vol. 37, 1934, pp. 97-98) and with Ticehurst 

 (Ibis, 1938, pp. 627-628) in the view that Hartert and Steinbacher's 

 inopinatus is a quite unnecessary renaming of Richmond's hodgsoni. 



A series of about 40 examples from Thailand are without exception 

 of the paler, lightly streaked Siberian race; it is not likely that any 

 other form of the species will be found to occur with us. 



ANTHUS RICHARDI RUFULUS Vieillot 



Indian Paddy-field Pipit 



Anthus rufulus Vieillot, Nouveau dictionriaire d'histoire naturelle, nouv. 6d., 

 vol. 26, 1818, p. 494 (Bengal). 



