456 Mr. J. H. Gurney's Notes on 



P. ichthyaetus, the largest of the genuSj and also the most 

 widely diffused, is, when in adult plumage, readily distin- 

 guished by the tail being white, with a broad terminal band 

 of brown. 



Mr. Sharpe enumerates various localities in which this 

 species is to be found, and some additional information on 

 this head is given by Mr. Hume in a valuable note on this 

 genus in ' Stray Feathers" for 1877, pp. 129, 130, in con- 

 nexion with which I may mention that the most north- 

 westerly locality in which I have heard of this bird being 

 obtained is the neighbourhood of Delhi, where, as I learnt 

 from my late friend Mr, A. Anderson, a specimen exhibiting 

 the characteristic white base of the tail was procured by 

 Captain Bingham, either in January or early in February, 

 1876. 



Mr. Sharpe describes the irides of the adult bird of this 

 species as " brown ;" but this appears to be their colour in the 

 young stage only {vide Hume's ' Scrap-book,' p. 241, footnote, 

 also ' Stray Feathers,' 1875, pp. 29, 30) ; the adult bird in 

 Java, according to Horsfield's ' Zoological Researches/ has 

 the irides " bright sulphur-yellow ;" and Captain Legge has 

 noted the irides of the adult in Ceylon as " clear yellow, 

 beautifully mottled with brown " {vide Ibis, 1875, p. 278) ; 

 two adults from Ceylon, in the collection of the Marquis of 

 Tweeddale, are simply marked by the collector as having the 

 irides " yellow.'^ 



P.plumbeus is a somewhat smaller bird than P. ichthyaetus, 

 and, according to Mr. Hume {vide * Stray Feathers,' 1877, 

 p. 11), is considerably less bulky; it, however, approaches, 

 and in some cases even equals, P. ichthyaetus in the measure- 

 ment of the wing ; it is an inhabitant of the countries lying 

 immediately to the south of the Himalayan mountains, and 

 is stated by Mr. Hume to range as far westward as Afghan- 

 istan, and eastward to Assam {vide ' Stray Feathers,' 1877, 

 p. 130). 



For further particulars as to this species I would refer to 

 the account given of it by Mr. Hume in his ' Nests and Eggs 

 of Indian Birds,' p. 43, and in the passages in ' Stray Fea- 



