1876.] MS. " ILLUSTRATIONS OF INDIAN ORNITHOLOGY." 433 



press no fresh light is thrown on the question of the perplexing changes of colour found in this 

 species. Biryiator malacojitilus is depicted running with long strides along the ground, and 

 Zoothera marginata extracting worms. from a river-bank, as observed by Colonel Tickell in Tenas- 

 serim. Turdus rufcollis (two plates), T. atrigularis, T. rufulus, T. mollissimus, T. dauma, and 

 T. albicinctus are well figured. 



The first plate of the Timeliinoe represents, under the title of Turdinus macrodactylus, the 

 type of Turdinus crispifrons, Blyth (J. A. S. B. xxiv. p. 269). It was shot near Moulmein. 

 Colonel Tickell considers it to be identical with the Malaccan form. The young bird is figured 

 with the sides of the head white. Trichastoma ahhoti, from near Moulmein, is figured and 

 described as distinct, with the title of Turdinus insidiosus, and, on the same plate, a Tenasserim 

 example of Stachyris nigriceps. 



The next plate represents two little-known species — Turdinus guttatus, Tickell (J. A. S. B. 

 1859, p. 450), and Turdinus brevicaudatus, Blyth — both discovered by Colonel Tickell on the 

 Mooleyit range in Tenasserim. Examples of T. guttatus I have never seen ; but, judgino- by the 

 plate, it must be nearly allied to, perhaps a representative form of, the Malaccan Timelia leucotis, Ibis, 1876, 

 Strickl. The principal diff"erences between the two species appear to be : — first, the throat beino- ^' 

 white in T. guttatus, while it is black in T. leucotis ; and, secondly, the breast being ash-coloured 

 in the Malaccan bird, and rufous (orange-rusty), like the abdomen, in T. guttatus. Colonel 

 Tickell's species was described and figured from a female ; but he describes the male and female 

 as being alike in plumage ; yet, although he shot what he presumed to be the male, he did not 

 succeed in finding it. The form of the bill in the genus Turdinus is so dissimilar to that of 

 Timelia leucotis that it is difficult to assume that Blyth would refer a species like Timelia leucotis 

 to his genus Turdinus. Still, in Colonel Tickell's plate, the bill resembles that of a Timelia 

 rather than that of a Tuj'dinus ; nor is the plumage that of a Turdinus. Turdinus brevicauda 

 (so written by Colonel Tickell) is too highly coloured ; and the spots on the tips of the tertiaries 

 and greater wing-coverts are described and figured as being white, whereas in all the examples 

 I have seen these spots are rusty fulvous, and in the excellent figure of the species o-iven by 

 Mr. Gould (B. As. pt. 24) they are so coloured. It may be that the Tenasserim type species 

 differs from that inhabiting the Khasias. As some excuse for describing the Khasia bird as new 

 under the title of T. striatus, 1 may be permitted to state that I did so at Dr. Jerdon's request 

 and that when he gave me the specimen which I described (Ann. N. H. (4) vii. p. 241*) from 

 he assured me that it was new. 



Lieutenant Wardlaw Ramsay discovered Sikia picaoides at an elevation of 5000 feet in 

 Karennee (Blyth, B. Burma, no. 319) ; and its occurrence in Burma has not been previously 

 made known ; but Colonel Tickell, who figures the species from a Darjeeling example, mentions 

 that he killed it at an elevation of 3000 feet in Tenasserim, and that " it inhabits the whole 

 Eastern Cis-himalaya and along the Malayan spur." His plate represents the colourino- of much 

 too pale a tint. 



In February 1859, on the plateau of Mooleyit, in Tenasserim, at an elevation of 6600 feet 

 Colonel Tickell discovered a species of Sibia, which has not, so far as I know, been ao-ain obtained 

 One example, that of a male, was secured ; and on being sent to Blyth at Calcutta, that o-entle- I^'^' 1^'^^' 

 man (J. A. S. B. xxviii. p. 413) described it with the title of Sibia melanoleuca, Tickell. In the ^" ^°^' 



* \_Antea, p. 98.— Ed.] 



