THE BLACK-THROATED OUZEL. 251 
been obtained by Herr Tancré’s collectors on the Altai Mountains. They 
exhibit the same variation in colour as the eggs of the Blackbird, and 
measure from 1:2 to 1:15 inch in length, and from ‘8 to *75 inch in breadth. 
The young in nestling-piumage which I brought from the valley of the 
Yenesay are very like the young of the Fieldfare, although the chestnut 
wing-lining and axillaries distinguish them at a glance, as also from the 
young of another closely allied Asiatic bird, of which I had the good 
fortune to obtain both eggs and young, the Dark Ouzel (Merula obscura). 
The autumn plumage of the Black-throated Ouzel is olive-brown above, 
darkest on the wings and tail; below, the throat and breast are black, with 
pale margins to the feathers, and the sides and flanks are greyish brown, 
becoming pure white on the belly. The wing-lining and axillaries are rich 
chestnut. During winter and spring the edges to the feathers are cast ; 
and the nuptial plumage displays the throat and breast pure black, the 
white of the underparts more distinct, and the whole colour of the upper 
parts much paler. Bull dark brown above, pale below; legs and feet pale 
brown ; irides dark brown. Females want the black on the throat and 
breast, the feathers having dark centres, except on the lower throat, which 
is uniform creamy white. Males of the year are like old females. 
The nearest relation of the Black-throated Ouzel is undoubtedly the 
Red-throated Ouzel (Merula ruficollis). So nearly allied are these species 
that there seems every reason to believe that they interbreed. In the 
Berlin Museum is a complete series of intermediate forms, from one to the 
other, including both extremes, all collected by Dybowsky on the southern 
shores of Lake Baikal in April and May. 
The Gold-vented Bulbul (Pycnonotus capensis) has no claim whatever to be considered 
a British bird, or even an accidental visitor to Europe. It has been included in the list in 
consequence of a single alleged occurrence more than forty years age: this bird may have 
escaped from a cage, or it may have been accidentally changed for aforeign skin. The only 
example on which its claims to the British fauna rest is a speeimen alleged to have been 
shot near Waterford, and which was in the collection of Dr. Robert Burkitt. In the same 
collection is also an example of Bubo capensis, which is represented to have been shot in 
Treland and which is labelled Bubo maximus—a circumstance which throws great doubt on 
the accuracy of the localities of the birds in this collection, and suggests the idea that the 
specimen of the Gold-yented Bulbul was also a South-African skin. The true home of the 
Gold-vented Bulbul is South Africa, where it seems to be exclusively confined to the 
Cape Colony. 
t is a common mistake, into which many ornithologists, and amongst them Professor 
Newton in his edition of Yarrell’s ‘ British Birds,’ have fallen, to suppose that the Bulbuls 
of modern naturalists belong to the same group as the Bulbul so celebrated in eastern 
song. The latter is the Persian Nightingale, Lrithacus golzi. None of the birds which 
ornithologists call Bulbuls have any great powers of song, unless it be the Palestine Bulbul, 
Pycnonotus xanthopygus, which, in Canon Tristram’s opinion, almost equals the Nightingale 
in power of voice. or 
he general colour of the Gold-vented Bulbul is brown, a little darker on the head, 
wings, and tail; it is almost white on the centre of the belly, and has the under tail- 
coverts bright yellow. 
