ZEGITHINA. 339 
27th March and contained one and three eggs respectively. In 
ground-colour these area greyish white and they are marked longi- 
tudinally with grey streaks and here and there with one more 
reddish. They measure between 17:3 x 1471 mm. and 20:2 x 
15°3 mm.; the former is presumably abnormally small. 
Habits. The Great Lora is more of a forest than a garden bird, 
at the same time in Mergui and other places it is known to enter 
compounds and orchards. It is said to keep to the higher trees 
in preference to scrub- and bush-jungle, to have a fine whistling 
call and to be entirely insectivorous in its diet. 
Genus AGITHINA Vieill., 1816. 
The birds of this genus are very closely allied to the last but have 
a smaller bill. Like the last they have two moults in the year, 
the inale assuming a breeding plumage at the early moult. 
Key to Species. 
= ae black or green throughout. 
z. Upper plumage either eveenish yellow, or 
black, or a mixture of apathy erin ane, A. tiphia, p. 339. 
b. Upper plumage entirely dark green...... A, viridissima, p. 345. 
Be tailetipped swath. white se. oi. eles +o « 4. nigrolutea, p. 544. 
AXgithina tiphia. 
This species is found over a very wide range of country from 
Ceylon, almost throughout India, ‘Burma, Sesh, the Malay “Penin- 
sula, Java and Borneo and, as might be expected, shows a very 
great variation in plumage, especially in the breeding season. 
Birds from the South of India and Ceylon are very like those 
from the extreme South of Burma and from the Malay Peninsula, 
as is so often the case with species which extend from one end ot 
the Indo- Burmese horseshoe to the other. Gradations from North 
to South are, however, very gradual and it is difficult to define 
where the meeting lines of the various races are to be found and 
on this account it is only possible to divide the species into very 
few well-defined geographical races. 
We have, however, the following subspecies which seem 
worthy of attention :— 
(1) A very black-backed bird from Ceylon and South Travancore, 
possibly reappearing in South Malaya 
(2) A bird with a much greener and less black back, which occurs 
over the whole South-East, East and Werth East India, 
arma, ete. ; and 
(3) A third form in which the male has xo black in the non- 
Grecune season and in which the female is duller and paler 
than those from elsewhere. 
Z2 
