SIl'HIA. 



9 



to pick up an insect, and occasionally makes a dart at one in the 

 air, returning after each sally to its perch. 



561. Siphia parva. The European Bed-breasted Flycatcher. 



Muscicapa parva, Bechst. Naturg. Dentschl, iv, p. 505 (1795) ; Sharpe, 



Cat. B. M. iv, p. 161. 

 Erythrosterna parva (Bechst.), Blanf. J. A. S. B. xxxvin, pt. n, 



p. 174 ; id. 8. F. v, p. 484 ; Hume, J. A. 8. B. xxxix, pt. u, p. 116 ; 



id. Cat. no. 323 bis ; Barnes, Birch Bom. p. 167. 



Coloration. Male. When in fresh plumage, after the autumn 

 moult, the forehead, lores, and cheeks are grey, speckled at times 

 with blackish ; a ring of white feathers round the eye ; sides of the 

 head bluish ashy ; crown and nape ashy brown ; remainder of the 

 upper plumage fulvous-brown ; upper tail-coverts black ; wing- 

 coverts, secondaries, and tertiaries brown, edged with fulvous- 

 brown ; primaries and primary-coverts edged more narrowly with 

 the same; chin, throat, and breast bright chestnut; remainder of 

 the lower plumage white, tinged with buff on the sides of the 

 body; the two middle pairs of tail-feathers wholly black; the 

 others with the basal two thirds more or less white. 



Female. The whole upper plumage brown, tinged with fulvous, 

 the crown being of the same colour as the back ; wings and tail 

 as in the male; upper tail-coverts black; feathers on the eyelids 

 white ; sides of the head rufous-brown ; lores whitish ; lower 

 plumage dull white, suffused with pale fulvous-ashy on the breast 

 and sides of the body. 



The young are spotted on the upper plumage and breast with 

 fulvous. After the autumn moult young males commence to 

 assume some red on the breast, and they become fully adult by 

 the spring. 



Iris blackish brown; legs and feet black; bill brown above, 

 brownish-flesh below (Butler). 



Length about 5; tail 2-1; wing 2-6; tarsus "65; bill from 



gape "6. j. 



~ Distribution. A winter visitor to a great portion of the Indian 

 peninsula, being found to the east as far as the Bhutan Doars at 

 the base of the Himalayas and Singbhoom in the plains, and to the 

 south as far as Mysore and the Nilgiris. 



This species is found in Central and South-eastern Europe 

 durino- the summer. Its distribution out of India is very difficult 

 to trace, as this Flycatcher has been confounded with the next by 

 many ornithologists, Seebohin going so far as to unite S. parva, 

 S. albicilla, and S. hyperythra into one species. I have seen no 

 example of S. parva from any portion of the Himalayas *, and 1 

 doubt if it ever crosses those mountains, the specimens said to 



* Stoliczka (J. A. S. B. xxxvii, pt. ii, p. 32), however, records Erythrosterna 

 leucwa from Kotgarh. The species he obtained may liave been 8. parva or 

 more likely 8. hyperythra. 



