11. CISTICOLA. 271 



otherwise like the male. Total length 3-7 inches, culmcn 0-45, 

 •wing 1"7, tail 1-35, tarsus 0-7. 



Young. With striped head like the female, but browner, with 

 blackish centres to the feathers, the hind neck also brown; rump 

 sandy rufous ; uriderueath pale yellowish. 



Winter plumar/e (= C. exilis. Lath.). Above streaked, the 

 feathers black, edged with ashy fulvous or sandy buff on mantle ; 

 lower back and rump sandy rufous streaked with black ; wing- 

 coverts dusky blackish, externally edged with sandy rufous ; bastard 

 ■wing dusky, externally washed ashy ; primary-coverts and quills 

 brown, edged with rufous-brown ; inner secondaries black, edged 

 all round with whitish ; upper tail-coverts sandy rufous, with broad 

 black longitudinal centres ; two central tail-feathers dull sandy 

 brown, with an indistinct subterminal bar ; remainder blackish, 

 washed externally with sandy brown and tipped with rusty fulvous ; 

 crown of head black, the feathers margined with sandy whitish ; nape 

 and hind neck more rufous, narrowly streaked with black, and form- 

 ing an indistinct collar; lores and feathers round eye whitish, with 

 a distinct eyebrow of rufous along sides of crown ; ear-coverts dusky 

 ash-brown, mottled with darker tips and whitish shaft-lines ; cheeks 

 yellowish, with tiny tips of dusky ; sides of neck sandy rufous like 

 eyebrow and hind neck ; throat, centx'e of breast, and abdomen, 

 whitish ; fore neck, sides of body, and flanks tawny buff, deeper on 

 thighs ; under taU-coverts tawny ; under wing-coverts and axU- 

 laries light tawny buff ; quills below dusky, ashy buff on their 

 inner webs. Total length 4*4 inches, culmen 0*45, wing 1-9, 

 tail 2-05, tarsus 0-75. 



Mr. Gates collected a series of birds in Pegu, with the sexes care- 

 fully determined, from which it is perfectly evident that the full- 

 plumaged female is different from the male and has the head striped. 

 All birds collected by Mr. Gates in the month of April are in full 

 moult, from which it appears that before breeding in May they 

 change at least the greater part of their plumage. In one speci- 

 men, otherwise red-headed, Mr. Gates found a single dusky feather ; 

 and from that he suggested that the winter plumage of the adult 

 male was, in all probability, like that of the old female, a striped one. 



Leaving Biirmah, and examining a scries from Australia, we find 

 the full-plumaged males with rufous heads, while the females have 

 striped heads ; but one skin shot by Mr. Goodwin in March on the 

 Eichmond river is moulting from the black-headed strii)ed stage 

 into the rufous-headed dress ; and there can be little doubt that the 

 winter plumage of loth sexes is blackish with streaked backs and 

 heads. The tail is longer, as in so many winter plumages of Cisticolce. 



Viewed from the light of these determinations, the whole dif- 

 ficulty of the question of the various species vanishes. In Aus- 

 tralia C. ruficeps is the adult male, C. exilis is the bird in full winter 

 plumage, while C. isitra is only the square-tailed, summer-plumaged 

 female bird. 



At first sight Formosan C. volitam^ and C ti/tleri from Assam 

 would appear diifcrcnt from C. rvjiccps by reason of their very 



