412 Letters, Extracts from Correspondence, Notices, S^c. 



classification of the non-Passerine Insessores since the year 

 1838. 



The last two numbers of the ' Ibis ' elicit the following re- 

 marks : — 



Page 17. Suya gracilis ; Prinia gracilis, Rup-peW. Examina- 

 tion of Nubian specimens has convinced me that this species is 

 undistinguishable from my S. lepida of IndiJi. 



Page 23. Nubian Sparrows also are absolutely undistinguish- 

 able from the so-called Passer indicus. 



Page 57. The Hirundo rufula of Africa is not the H. daUrica 

 of Asia, although the two species are nearly akin. 



Page 63. So far as I have seen, the sexes of all Orioles, when 

 fully mature, are alike in plumage, excepting that the females are 

 not quite so vividly coloured as the males. What are commonly 

 mistaken for the females are the young of either sex ; and some 

 females breed before attaining their final colouring. I have shot 

 the female of Lanius collurio, with ova far advanced, in the finest 

 masculine plumage ; and another individual in partially mascu- 

 line attire, not in moult, but having assumed an intermediate 

 livery to the ordinary plumage of the two sexes. 



Page 105. Pitta cyanoptera inhabits also Arakan and the 

 Tenasserim Provinces ; probably, likewise, the Indo-Chinese ter- 

 ritories generally. Occasionally an individual occurs with a par- 

 ticularly large bill, and upon one of these a species has been 

 sought to be founded. 



Page 110. The Pitta genus is scarcely Himalayan ; and, to be 

 very correct, I should rather sa.y from the base of "the Hima- 

 layas to Ceylon." 



Page 180. My friend Col. Tick ell seems indisposed to believe 

 that Buceros alhirostris inhabits Bengal. It is the only species 

 which is not uncommonly brought alive to Calcutta; and it 

 abounds in Eastern Bengal, Nipal, and in Assam. I likewise 

 obtained it in the Midnapore jungles, where it meets the B. pica 

 (vel malabaricus), which extends throughout the Indian penin- 

 sula and Ceylon. In theDeyraDoon the J5. affinis occurs, being 

 like B. alhirostris in colouring and form of casque, but as large 

 as B. pica ; and in the Malayan region the B. [convexus) with 

 the form and small size of B. alhirostris, but the entirely white 

 four pairs of outer tail-feathers of B.pica. — E. Blyth. 



