Mr. E. Blyth on the Birds of India. 3 



no difference whatever in size ; but that from the East Indies is 

 considerably larger, the length of its wing, in fact, measuring 

 7 in., while that of the Senegal race is not quite 6 in."* The 

 late H. E. Strickland, however, in a list of birds procured in 

 Kordofan, remarks that "this species, which extends across 

 Africa from Abyssinia to Senegal, is identical with specimens 

 from India f.'^ Col. Chesney, moreover, notices them in Syria as 

 " abounding in the spring J." Of numerous Asiatic specimens 

 examined (from Upper India, Bengal, Ceylon, Burmah, &c.), I 

 have found the length of wing to be very regularly 6i in., 

 though a few old males attain to 7 in. According to Lieut. Irwin, 

 "the Parrot and Maina are scarcely natives of Turkistan, or at 

 least of the country around the Oxus § " — by which, I presume, 

 he means that they do occur there as visitants. 



This is one of the commonest of Indian birds, inhabiting the 

 plains chiefly, if not exclusively. It is found alike in Ceylon, the 

 Deyra Doon, Assam, Sylhet, parts of Burmah, and the Malayan 

 peninsula (to the latitude of Penang), preferring cultivated dis- 

 tricts ; and, so far as I have seen, it is the only Indian Parrakeet 

 that affects the vicinity of human habitations, flocks of them often 

 settling on buildings, especially if in gardens with trees about 

 them, and a few pairs commonly breeding in suitable cavities 

 about large buildings. It is the only species observed wild in 

 the densely populous immediate neighbourhood of Calcutta ; but 

 in the nearest jungle-districts, more especially on hilly ground, 

 it is replaced by P. rasa. The multitudes of them about some 

 of the stations in the plains of Upper India, particularly where 

 there are large avenues of trees (as at Allahabad), are indeed 

 astonishing ; and Mr. Layard^s description of them in Ceylon 

 will be familiar to the ornithological reader^. In the dense 

 forest-jungles of the hill-regions lying eastward of the Bay of 

 Bengal it does not occur, though found in open country, as in 

 Upper Pegu. In the Tenasserim provinces, remarks Dr. Mason, 



* Nat. Libr., Birds of West Africa, ii. p. 175. 



t Proc. Zool. Soc. 1850, p. 219. 



:J: Joui'nal of the Euphrates Expedition, i. pp. 443, 537. 



§ Journ. As. Soc. viii. p. 1007. 



H Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist. xiii. (1854) p. 262. 



B 2 



