190 BIRDS OF INDIA. 



Gen. Otothrix, Gray. 



Char. — Bill smaller than in Batrochostomus, tlie feathers over the 

 bill, in front of the head, and a tuft over the ears, prolonged 

 into hair-like bristles ; the upper mandible not overlapping the 

 lower one, as in true Batrachostomus. 



Mr. Gray remarks that in its mode of coloration it approaches 

 true Podargus rather than Batrachostomus. 



106. Otothrix Hodgsonii, Gray. 



p. Z. S. 1859, p. 101, figd. pi. 152.— Batr. affinis, Blyth, in 



part 



? 



Hodgson's Frog-mouth. 



Deser. — Head black, each feather banded and slightly margined 

 with rufous-white; back and wing-coverts ferruginous, mottled 

 with black, and varied with blotches of white ; quills, secondaries, 

 and tertiaries, brownish black, marked on the outer and inner 

 margins with blotches of rufous-white ; tail ferruginous, speckled 

 with black, and with oblique bands of rufous-white ; beneath, tinged 

 with rufous, and each feather marked near the tip with black. 



Length, 10^ inches ; wing, 5^. 



It must, I think, have been this species which Blyth notices as a 

 variety of his Bat. a^nis. One of his specimens wasprofuselymottled 

 with black on a pale ground, but faintly tinged Avith chesnut; another 

 was mostly rufous or chesnut, with obsolete markings, darker on the 

 crown and shoulders. A specimen in the Museum, As. Soc, Cal- 

 cutta, from Java, and sent as Pod. cornutus, is exceedingly similar 

 to the figure in the Illustrated P. Z. S. The bird figured in 

 Shaw's Zoology as P. cornutus, Tern., is very different in appearance 

 from Pod. javanensis, as figured by Horsfield, and it is evident that 

 the two species have been confounded. The former bird, cornutus, 

 appears to be an Otothrix^ and is barely (if indeed at all) distin- 

 guishable from Hodgsonii ; w\n[s,i javanensis, of which there is also 

 a specimen in the As. Soc. Museum, is a true Batrochostomus. The 

 following is a brief description of the specimen above alluded to. 

 The whole plumage is mottled and vermiculated with brown on 

 a rufous-grey ground ; there is a white nuchal collar, and the 

 outer edges of the scapulars are also white ; beneath, the chin is 



