BIRDS FROM SL-UI AND THE MALAY PENINSULA 129 



bii'd is a little larger. The female from Nong Yang resembles the 

 immature male from Miiek Lek in the pattern of the tail, except that 

 the latter has acquired two of the violet-purple outside feathers and 

 one middle feather of the adult plumage. I consider the Nong Yang 

 specimen an immature male. 



The immature male from Muek Lek has acquired the adult plumage 

 on the back, head, and chest; the wings have not changed yet but 

 resemble those of the female, although one new violet-purple secondary- 

 has appeared in the right wing; the tail is barred cinnamon and bronzy 

 green, somewhat like the outside feathers of the adult female; the 

 green bars are closer together and run together along the shaft. The 

 cinnamon is reduced to mere notches on the old remaining middle 

 feather; there is one new violet-purple middle feather and two new 

 outside feathers of the adult male plumage. 



Three males from the Philippines (Palawan, 2; Mindanao, 1) are 

 somewhat sm.aller than the Siamese series. The three Philippine males 

 measure: Wing, 92-105 (97.2); culmen, 14-15 (14.7) mm. The four 

 males from Siam: Wing, 103.5-108 (105.4); culmen, 16-16.5 (16.1) mm. 



No specimens from Java are available for comparison. 



For some reason, probably because of its habits, there are few records 

 of the violet cuckoo for Siam. 



Ogilvie-Grant ^* records specimens from Patani ; Williamson ^^ from 

 Bangnara, Patani, and Bangkok; Robinson and Kloss ^^ from the 

 eastern boundary of Trang; Robinson ^^ from Ban Kok Klap, Ban- 

 don; and de Schauensee ^* from Bua Yai, Sriracha, and Nakon 

 Sritamarat. 



The species ranges from Bengal east of the Bay and to Burma, Siam, 

 Laos, Cochinchina, South Annam, and south through Peninsular Siam 

 to the Malay States, Nicobar and Andaman Islands, Sumatra, Java, 

 Borneo, and the Philippines. 



The m.ale of this species is easily distinguished. It is a beautiful, 

 shining, dusky violet above and on the chest and throat; breast white 

 barred with purple and dark green; bill yellow. The female can be 

 diflerentiated from the same sex of maculatus by the different color of 

 the pilcum, back, and central tail feathers; in maculatus, the pileum 

 and hindneck are cinnamon, with slight dusky crossbars, while in 

 nwthorhynchus they are natal brown, with faint crossbars of pecan 

 brown; the back in the latter is shining olive, with lilac-purple iri- 

 descence in certain lights, each feather edged with orange-cinnamon; 

 in waculatus the back and wings are a shining coppery emerald-green; 

 in xanthorhync/ius the feathers of the wing are like the back and broadly 



" Fasciculi Malayenses, pt. 3, 105, 1905. 



» Jotirn. N'at. Hist. Soc. Siam, vol. 3, p. 25, 1918. 



« Ibis. 1911, p. 41. 



•' Journ. Federated Malay States Mus., vol. 5, p. 93, 1915. 



" Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, vol. 86, p. 257, 1934. 



