562 MANUAL OF PHILIPPINE BIRDS. • 



light fle.ch-color ; nails light brown. Length, 165 mm. A male from 

 Masbate mGasures: Wing, 84; tail, 73; culmen from base, 20; bill from 

 nostril, 12; tarsus, 28; middle toe with claw, 23. A male from Ticao, 

 wing, 79; tail, 66; culmen from base, 18; bill from nostril, 11; tarsus, 

 27; middle toe with claw, 22. 



"A young male, nearly adult, has a few white feathers on chin and 

 throat and a faint wash of light buff on the flanks. A much younger 

 bird has many of the feathers of the back tipped with rusty brown and 

 the greater wing-coverts and quills washed with the same color; chin 

 ctnd throat almost pure white ; an ill-defined black collar ; the entire under 

 ciurface w^ashed with light buff, deeper on the flanks. 



■■'This well-marked species is extremely rare in Masbate. It feeds in 

 dense thickets in the deep woods and we never heard it utter a note. 

 The Luzon bird, C. luzoniensis, has a superciliary stripe, but this stripe 

 is not nearly so broad as in this species, and as the strongly marked 

 superciliary line is one of the most noticeable characters of the Masbate 

 bird we have named it accordingly." {Bourns and ^Yorcester.) 



544. KITTACINCLA NIGRA Sharpe. 



PALAWAN BLACK SHAMA. 



Citiocincla nigra Siiarpe, Trans. Linn. Soc. 2d. ser. Zool. (1877), 1, 335, 

 pi. 52; Cat Birds Brit. Mus. (1883), 7, 90; Hand-List (1903), 4, 161; 

 McGregor and Worcester, Hand-List (1906), 86. 



Balabac {Everett) ; Calamianes (Bourns d Worcester) ; Palawan {Steere, 

 Everett, Whitehead, Platen, Steere Exp., Bourns & Worcester, Everett, Celestino, 

 White). 



Adult male and female. — Almost entirely glossy blue-black; some 

 feathers of lower abdomen, flanks, and sides of back with white shafts, 

 or with subterminal white spots which are more or less concealed; under 

 tail-coverts black, broadly tipped with white; four central rectrices black, 

 the others white with concealed black bases; wings black, most of the 

 feathers edged with glossy blue-black. Length, 215 to 220 mm. A male 

 from Palawan measures: Wing, 88;. tail, 105; culmen from base, 17; bill 

 from nostril, 12 ; tarsus, 26 ; middle toe with claw, 23. A female, wing, 

 81; tail, 98; culmen, from base, 17; bill from nostril, 11; tarsus, 22. 



Young. — Similar to the adult but throat and breast less glossy; abdo- 

 men, flanks, and crissum entirely white, thighs brown; the flanks slightly 

 washed with earthy brown. In more nearly adult plumage the throat 

 and breast become glossy and the white of the abdomen is reduced in 

 extent and broken up; the thighs become black. 



"Quite common in Palawan, where we found it skulking in thickets in 

 the deep woods, usually near or on the ground, thougli it would fly up 



