AKT. 5 BIRDS FROM YUNNAN AND SZECHWAN^ CHINA RILEY 21 



The males of this series differ principally from the series I have 

 called P. h. affinis from the Burma border in having longer tails and 

 the lower parts scarlet instead of scarlet red. The only female of 

 P. h. a^fjinis available is quite different from the same sex of P. h. 

 cthologiis. It is much darker above without the olive wash to the 

 lower back, the forehead yellowish, and the rump and lower parts a 

 much deeper yellow. 



A male in the Museum from Shensi has a shorter tail than the 

 Likiang males and the red below is not quite so scarlet. 



Pericrocotus hrevirostris styani Baker ^' is apparently only a syn- 

 onym of Bangs and Phillips' form, as he evidently overlooked their 

 paper. 



An immature female, taken in the Likiang Mountains in August, 

 has the feathers of the head and mantle barred with blackish and 

 narrowly tipped with white, the throat and chest barred with dusky. 

 A female taken at the same time and place is much lighter above than 

 the adult and below has the plumage much mixed with grayish- white. 

 It is an immature in the next stage after losing the dusky and 

 white bars above and the dusky bars below. 



Family PYCNONOTIDAE. Bulbuls 



82. MICROSCELIS LEUCOCEPHALUS (Gmclin) 



Turdus leucocepJialus Gmeun, Sys. Nat., vol. 1, pt. 2, 1789, p. 829 (China). 



A fair series of both sexes and immature : Likiang Mountains, 

 8,200-10,000 feet, April-August; Likiang Plain, 8,200 feet, August; 

 Ashi, banks of the Yangtze, July ; Lameka, north of Lashipa, July ; 

 Tseh Chung Mountains, Mekong Valley, November. 



The United States National Museum has acquired quite a series of 

 this species in recent years from the various parts of its range. 

 Amongst this series there are specimens wholly black; black with a 

 white head ; black with a gray breast and white head ; and specimens 

 changing from one plumage to another. I rather think the wholly 

 black bird is a younger stage of plumage, as one specimen of this 

 phase (296540) has a dark upper mandible; the black birds with 

 white heads the next stage; and the black-backed, gray-breasted, 

 white-headed birds the fully adult of the second or third year. Yet 

 there is a specimen (296539), black-backed and gray-breasted chang- 

 ing from a dark colored head to a white one, which would tend to 

 show that this plumage is sometimes acquired at the first molt. It 

 seems to me that Harmlgtonia leucoceylialus niontivagus Bangs and 

 Penard ^^ represents only the black phase of the present species. 



>'Bull. Brit. Orn. Club, vol. 40, 1920, p. 117. 



" Proc. New England Zool. Club, vol. 8, 1923, p. 41. 



