Mr. E. Hargitt on the Genus Gecinus. 161 



This specimen has the outer webs of the secondaries strongly 

 washed with green (these feathers in the male type being 

 much worn) ; the tail-shafts are also browner. Total length 

 13-5 inches^ culmen TS, wing 6*05, tail 4*6^ tarsus ri5. 



G. gorii differs from G. squamatus in being of a very pale 

 green above, the Aving-coverts and scapulars barred with a 

 darker shade of green ; the squamate markings on the under- 

 parts reduced to a thread-like intermarginal line; the light 

 bars on the quills as broad, or even broader, than the black 

 interspaces ; the tail creamy white, narrowly barred with 

 brownish black, these bars showing but faintly on the under 

 surface, which is strongly washed with golden yellow. 



This bird is a desert form of the Himalayan G. squamatus, 

 and the type specimen, which is in the British Museum, was 

 brought to this country by Brigade-Surgeon Aitchison, Na- 

 turalist with the Afghan Delimitation Commission. It was 

 shot by Captain Gore on the 26th of October 1884, atPadda 

 Sultan, on the Helmund. The nature of the country in 

 which G. gorii was found appears to be quite different from 

 that inhabited by its ally, G. squamatus. Dr. Aitcliison 

 informs me that the only indigenous trees are Populus euphra- 

 tica and Tamarix articulata, which grow in the bed of the 

 river, together with numerous small tamarisks and reeds, the 

 high banks being extremely barren and devoid of anything 

 in the way of vegetation except salsolaceous scrub. 



The female specimen is in the Hume collection, now con- 

 tained in the British Museum, and was obtained by Dr. Duke 

 at Quetta, in December 1877, at an altitude of 5500 feet. 



10. Gecinus vittatus. 



Picus vittatus, Vieill. N. Diet. d^Hist. Nat. xxvi. p. 91 

 (1818) ; id. & Bonn. Enc. Meth. p. 1317 (1823); Drap. Diet. 

 Class, xiii. p. 505 (1828) ; Less. Traite, p. 221 (1831) ; Sundev. 

 Consp. Av. Picin. p. 59 (1866), pt. ; Giebel, Thes. Oru. iii. 

 p. 186 (1876), pt. 



Picus affinis, Raffl. Trans. Linn. Soc. xiii. p. 288 (1821); 

 Vig. Mem. Baffl. p. 668 (1830); Less. Compl. Buff. ix. 

 p. 312 (1837). 



