366 Mr. Blyth's Commentary 



Hodgson obtained his specimens of Salpornis from Behar. The 

 latter genus is not distantly allied to the Australian form 

 Climacteris, and also shows some approach to the Mexican 

 Campylorhynchus megalopterus, Lafresnaye, as figured by M. O. 

 DesMurs (Icon. Orn. pi. 54). It is curious to observe how the 

 combination of Tree-creeper and Nuthatch, as shown in these 

 genera, is reversed in the Dendrudromus leucosternus, Gould 

 (figured in ' Zoology of the Voyage of the Beagle/ Aves, pi. 27). 



251. SiTTA CINNAMOMEIVENTKIS. 



This species (and not >S^. hiinalayensis, as averred by Mr. 

 Gould, and after him by Dr. Sclater, Ibis, 1865, p. 309) is "the 

 Himalayan form of S. europcea/' resembling the latter exactly 

 in size and structure, but in colouring (which differs in the 

 sexes) S. castaneiventris {S. castanea, Lesson) : the last is 

 smaller and less robust, with a considerably more slender bill 

 (much as in the American S. aculeata, Cassin, as distinguished 

 from S. carolinensis ; vide Baird's ' Birds of America,' pi, xxxiii.), 

 while >S^. himalayensis is also a smaller bird, with proportionally 

 much shorter bill — that is, wider and more depressed at base. 

 The Palestine Nuthatch, erroneously referred to >S^. k?-ueperi 

 (Ibis, 1865, pi. vii.) by Mr. Tristram (P. Z. S. 1864, p. 433), 

 would seem to correspond with the female of S. cinnamomeiventris 

 {cf. Mr. Gould's figure, B. As. pt. i.). The last-named species 

 is confined to the Himalaya (unless spreading westward, as to 

 Palestine?), its range not extending "far and wide over the 

 districts of India " as asserted by Mr. Gould — a statement which 

 in this genus will apply only to S. castaneiventris. S. syriaca 

 is common in Afghanistan. 



253. Dendrophila frontalis. 



A beautiful second species of this genus exists in the Javan 

 D. asurea (Lesson) ; D. flavipes, Swainson; Gray and Mitchell, 

 111. Gen. Birds, pi. 45. 



255. Upupa ceylonensis, Reichenbach. 



Noted from Java by Dr. Cabanis, but doubtless the common 

 Indo-Chinese race {U. longirostris, Jerdon), which again is that 

 observed in Siam by the late Sir R. H. Schomburgk (Ibis, 

 1864, p. 247), and which was referred to U. nigripennis by Mr. 



