60 iirBONiDJ,. 



Hah. Malayan peninsula, ranging northwards into Southern 

 China*. 



a. Ad. sk. Malacca. Hup:li Cuming, Esq. [C.]. 



h. Ad. sk. Malacca. A. R. Wallace, Esq. [C.]. 



c. Ad. sk. Singapore. Earl of Ellenborough [P.]. 



Ohs. This is a very well-marked form of the Scops c/iu group, and 

 is by no means so very different in appearance from S.cajjensis; but it is 

 cliiefly remarkable for the ocellated appearance of the head and hind 

 neck, the latter having very broad white bars, so as to form a strik- 

 ing contrast to the head and back ; the ear-coverts are dusky as in 

 >S. stictonotm. The character of the under surface is peculiar, and 

 has been well commented on by Lord Walden in his original descrip- 

 tion : — " The under surface is distinctly divided into two equal 

 portions, the first, including the chiu, throat, and breast, being wood- 

 brown, mottled with a little white, light rufous, and black, irregu- 

 larly distributed ; the lower division, including the beUy, vent, 

 thigh-coverts, and under tail-coverts, is white, speckled with deep 

 brown and light rufous." 



Considerable differences are exhibited in the three specimens 

 possessed by the Museum, but thay al^ agree in one character, viz. 

 the large white spotting on the hind neck, which gives an ocellated 

 appearance. Mr. Cuming's specimen is greyish like the one de- 

 scribed, but is much more obscurely coloured below by reason of the 

 numerous greyish vermiculations which crowd the belly ; everywhere 

 on the upper surface the vermiculations are rather finer. Mr. 

 Wallace's bird is much more rufous, but shows the white ocellation 

 on the hind neck, and is also a good deal clouded on the beUy with 

 cross lines. 



Subsp. ^. Scops rufipeimis. 

 Scops pennatus, Jerd. Madr. Journ. xiii. pi. 2, p. 119. 



Of the Scops giu group, and very closely allied to S. malayanus, 

 and resembling it in the dusky grey ear-coverts, but distinguished 

 by the absence of the white ocellations on the hind neck and of the 

 bars on the centre tail-feathers, and more especially by its rufous 

 quills. The following is a description of the type : — 



Adult. General aspect of upper surface more uniform than is usual 

 in species of this genus, being of a dusky greyish brown, the feathers 

 being blackish in the centre, but scarcely to be called streaked, ex- 

 cepting on the fore part of the crown, where the black shafts are 

 very broad and distinct, aU the feathers of the upper surface so finely 

 pencilled with dark brown as to appear almost uniform, with here 

 and there a few sandy- coloured mottlings, more distinct on the head, 

 to which they impart a slightly spotted appearance ; the collar on the 

 hind neck very indistinct, some of the feathers being barred with 



* Lord Walden has a specimen from Fokien, procured by Mr. Swinhoe in 

 Sept. 1866, wliich agrees with typical Malayan examples, and not with S. 

 stictonofus. 



