714 MANUAL OF PHILIPPINE BIRDS. 



white, ashy gray posteriorly ; under tail-coverts white ; under wing-coverts 

 and axillars white ; quills below dusky, ashy brown along the inner edge, 

 the base of the quills white. 'Bill bright red, with the tips white; feet 

 orange; iris black, with a light circle.' (David.) Length, 198; culmen, 

 25; wing, 120; tail, 61; tarsus, 29. 



"All the males [in the British Museum], so marked, are of a delicate 

 gray, and vary very slightly in the direction of a whiter or a browner head. 

 A female collected by Mr. Eeeves at Ningpo is altogether browner, rather 

 more ashy on the rump; the gloss on the wings and tail less distinct; 

 primary-covests blackish brown near the base, white at the ends, with a 

 central black streak ; head whitish, ashy gray on sides of crown and hind 

 neck; sides of face whitish, ashy on the cheeks; under surface of body 

 as in the male, but light brown instead of gray. This specimen is 

 apparently immature." (Sharpe.) 



A solitary female of the silky starling was obtained on Calayan Island 

 in November, 1903. Iris dirty white; legs bright yellow; nails yellowish 

 brown; basal one-half of bill reddish yellow; terminal half dusky. 

 Length, 216; wing, 118; tail, 71; culmen from base, 24; bill from 

 nostril, 16; tarsus, 29; middle toe with claw, 30. 



729. SPODIOPSAR CINERACEUS ( Temminck ) . 



/ 

 ASHY STABLING. 



Stumus cineraceus Temminck, PI. Col. (1827), 2, pi. 556. 



Poliopsar cineraceus Sharpe, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. (1890), 13, 41 and 



addenda, 665. 

 Spodiopsar cineraceus Gates, Fauna Brit. Ind. Birds (1889), 1, 524; 



Meabns, Phil. Jour. Sci. (1907), 2, sec. A, 353. 



Luzon (Mearns). Eastern Siberia, Japan, China, Formosa, Upper Burma. 



"Coloration. — Forehead, crown, nape, and sides of neck black, the 

 forehead streaked with white; lores, ear-coverts, and round the eye white, 

 streaked with black; chin and throat dark ashy brown with paler and 

 indistinct shaft-streaks; breast ashy, slightly paler than throat; sides 

 of the body and thighs rufous ashy; abdomen and under tail-coverts 

 white; back, scapulars, rump, and upper tail-coverts drab-brovm with 

 a broad white bar across the rump; tail drab-brown with broad white 

 tips to all the inner webs of the feathers except the middle pair; wing- 

 coverts and tertials bronzy brown; remainder of wing blackish, the 

 primaries narrowly, the secondaries more broadly, margined with white 

 on the outer webs; under wing-coverts and axillars white, a few feathers 

 of the former partially margined with brown. 



"The youngest bird I have seen has the whole plumage russet-brown, 

 the inner webs of the tail-feathers tipped with white, the quills of the 

 wing edged with paler brown; the ear-coverts whitish; the ehin nearly 

 pure white. 



