on new Species of Central- Asian Bii-ds. 405 



tail-coverts, brighter towards the hinder part of the flanks. 

 Wings fulvous, with greenish marginal feathers and rufous 

 margins on the posterior quills and larger upper coverts ; 

 lower wing-coverts greyish white, with reddish tips, much 

 worn in the specimen described, Rectrices dusky black, with 

 greenish-grey margins ; outer web of rectrices white. 



Young males in fresh summer (June) plumage have less 

 brilliantly coloured tail-coverts, paler abdomen, dark-fulvous 

 quills, and black rectrices. We did not obtain a female. 



This species was only discovered on my fourth journey into 

 Central Asia, in North-eastern Thibet, in the mountain-forests 

 on the Upper Blue River (Yang-tse-Kiang, or Dy-chu), at a 

 height of 13,000 to 14,000 feet. Its habits are not distin- 

 guishable from those of L. sophia (which inhabits the neigh- 

 bouring basin of the Upper Hoang-ho, but is not found on 

 the Upper Yang-tse Kiang) ; and it likewise mostly frequents 

 the thickets of the alpine zone; whereas L. elegans is con- 

 fined to the forests on the lower belts of the mountains. 



Here let me say of L. sophi(B that this species, first dis- 

 covered in the Western Thian Shan by our well-known 

 zoologist and explorer, the late N. A. Severtzow, was met 

 with on all four of my journeys in Central Asia — in the 

 Thian Shan, in the basin of the Tarim, in the Russian Altyn 

 tagh and Nan-shan ranges, in Tsaidam and its neighbouring 

 mountainous Tibetan border-land, lastly in the basin of the 

 Upper Hoang-ho and on Lake Koko-nor. In these last 

 localities — in the mountains of Kan-suh (along the Tatuno-- 

 gol), Koko-nor, and on the Upper Hoang-ho, south of this 

 lake, similar in climate and other physical conditions to the 

 forested parts of the Thian Shan — the specimens of L. sophice 

 obtained by us are not distinguishable, on comparison, from 

 the typical specimens brought home by Severtzow, and 

 have the same deep colouring both of the dusky as well as 

 of the ultramarine feathers. The seventeen specimens ob- 

 tained by us in the region intervening between the basin of 

 the Upper Hoang-ho and the Thian Shan (including the 

 southern treeless slope of this last-mentioned range, in fact 



